In the initial days of startup, no one knows about your product. Very few understand your product and even fewer want to buy it. Then how will you grow? Growth hack, is the answer. It means growing exponentially instead of linearly. Imagine if you can demonstrate that you will have new customers lining up, investors chatting about your venture and newspapers covering your interviews.
Here are some quick tips
Bloggers/ Media Partners — How will your customer make a decision of buying your product or downloading your mobile app? How will they even know your app/product’s existence? The answer is top blogs/ reviewers. Often the early adopters visit blogs or view these video reviews and keep themselves updated on what new is happening in their space. So to get to these customers, you need to be in those spots. Offer the bloggers free samples of your products and let them write an unbiased review on their website. When a potential customer reads this article, he can decide on his own whether he wants to pursue this product or not.
Affiliate Partnerships — If your product is digital or is being sold via a website or app, you need your customers to first check your web presence. Now that’s tricky, because they won’t even know your domain name. There is a quicker way! Partner with affiliates who already sell similar stuff and ask them to tag your website on their homepages. Promise them a certain commission depending on your product for every sale that comes through their website. If an affiliate partner is already getting many customers everyday, then even if a percentage is coming to your website, you have cracked your initial traffic without advertising or paying anything up front.
SEO — This is a big topic in itself. But for now I would tell you that study basics of SEO and push content on your website so that it starts reflecting higher on Google ranking. You will be amazed on how little changes can push you higher in search results.
If you have any queries, feel free to write to me on Rajeev@TBSPlanet.com
Rajeev Tamhankar
Twitter@rajeevtamhankar
The writer is the founder of TBS Planet Comics. He is ex-Flipkart, Xiaomi employee, and IIT-R Silver medalist.