After finding out what is the value of users, another important thing for startups is to have a distribution plan: does your product have a viral feature? If not, how to get a first user and customer?

1. Go To Market
Week 5

2. How to get your first user
Back to the slide about validating your idea:
● Solve your own problem
● Solve other people’s problem: you know someone who has a problem
● Trendy problem

3. How to get your first user
Back to the slide about validating your idea:
● Solve your own problem
○ Think about where you stay, what type of applications you use
● Solve other people’s problem: you know someone who has a problem
○ Think about where these people are and ask them
● Trendy problem
○ Think about where these people are and research it

4. 1. Everyone started from zero
2. Distribution is key!

5. What is a funnel
● An object that has a wide round
opening at the top, sloping sides,
and a narrow tube at the bottom,
used for pouring liquids or powders
into containers with narrow necks:
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/funnel

6. What is (A)AARRR funnel
● It’s called Pirate Metrics.
It was invented in 1992 or 2007 by
Dave Maclure, ex-founder of 500
Startup
● This funnel is useful for sales
activities and marketing to have
actionable metric goals for your
startup

7. AAARRR funnel
● Awareness
○ Get more views and visitors for your acquisitions channels
● Acquisition
○ Get leads for increasing users and customers
● Activation
○ Acquire users (registered or activated)
● Retention
○ Engage user’s time more
● Referral
○ Spread user’s love to bring more users
● Revenue
○ Get paid and make money

8. AAARRR funnel
● Awareness
○ Getting their attention and interests
● Acquisition
○ Getting their info
● Activation
○ Getting their time and info
● Retention
○ Getting their time (more)
● Referral
○ Spending their social capital
● Revenue
○ Spending their money

9. AAARRR funnel: example
● Awareness
○ 100,000 views
● Acquisition
○ 10,000 registered users
● Activation
○ 1,000 registered users (10% of conversion rate)
● Retention
○ 100 monthly active users
● Referral
○ 10 users invite new users
● Revenue
○ 1 user pays

10. AAARRR funnel: activities
● Awareness:
○ Social Media marketing : post or share (FB, Insta, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest, Tiktok, etc.)
○ Paid ad (LinkedIn, Twitter, FB, Google ads)
○ Website (SEO)
○ Startup local media (Hacker News, Product Hunt)
○ Branding: speak at conferences and events
○ Media coverage
○ PR: Press release (Product launch, partnership, new feature)
○ Content marketing:
■ Blog: Written content (Technical, entrepreneurial, or industrial content on Medium or your blog
■ Video: Youtube and interview
■ Podcast: Record
● Acquisitions:
● Activations:
● Retention:
● Referral and Revenue

11. AAARRR funnel: activities
● Awareness:
● Acquisitions:
○ Organize & join events or webinars
○ Create a group and build community (FB, LinkedIn, meetup, Slack, etc. )
○ Direct outbound sales
○ Get an intro from other friends, family, colleagues
○ Email: newsletter (useful info for subscribers)
● Activations:
● Retention:
● Referral & Revenue:

12. AAARRR a funnel: activities
● Awareness:
● Acquisitions:
● Activations:
○ Email: welcome email, especially onboarding process and usecase (new registered users)
○ Email: product updates or news (registered users)
○ Customer support (users)
● Retention:
● Referral & Revenue:

13. AAARRR a funnel: activities
● Awareness:
● Acquisitions:
● Activations:
● Retention:
○ Send a notification to users (Likes, views, reminders)
○ Email: product updates or news (activated users)
○ Adding new feature
○ Must-have survey
○ User interviews
○ Customer support
○ Check data to understand users, type of actions, # of usages
● Revenue & referral:

14. AAARRR a funnel: activities
● Awareness:
● Acquisitions:
● Activations:
● Retention:
● Referral & Revenue:
○ Add an invitation feature (To get more usages, currency, or unlock a feature)
○ Add a recommendation (Recommend content to other users, Foxsy, Tinder)
○ Must-have survey (understand power users)
○ Add payment by using a landing page
○ Get their payment info before building a product or completing your product
○ Improve conversion rate from non-paid users to paid users
○ Focus on power users

15. Examples:

16. Product Hunt:

17. Posting to social media:

18. Media coverage:

19. Platform distribution:

20. Youtube:

21. Re-cap:
Marketing activities are really based on the thing you want to achieve:
- Where your users are
- What type of content they like
- What type of apps or tools they use
- Any industry influencer you can make a connection with
- Any distribution channel that you can use to spread your service

22. Question?

23. Reference:
Hacking Growth by Sean Ellis