After enjoying several talks throughout the day at the Startup Grind Global Conference including the Q&A with Justin Kan, co-founder of Twitch; and Mike Brown’s “Tech is the New Black†discussion with Flip founder and CEO Kemar Newell; my mind started to move into a relaxed state thinking the day was about to wind down.
Boy, was I wrong. I walked into a room of approximately 200 people and positioned myself in the front row for Christine Souffrant Ntim’s talk, “100 Random Hacks to Scale a Startup in 6 Months.” Still in my relaxed state, I got adjusted, started to take my phone out in order to record some of the conversation and then WHAM! I was hit by resource, after resource, after resource. They just kept coming, broken down into four succinct categories: Product Hacking, Growth Hacking, Funding Hacking and Press Hacking.
(Image: Buildteam.io/Christine Souffrant Ntim)Here are just a few of those resources that Souffrant Ntim decided to share, specifically under the Growth Hacking category:
Post & Share Sites:
- Post on the “Legendary Three”: Reddit, Digg, HackerNews. (Ninja Tip: Before posting a link of your screenshot to Reddit, first share it on Twitter and then post the Twitter status link to Reddit. It’s an easy way to pick up a few Twitter followers).
- Post a deck demo on SlideShare with a perk: www.slideshare.net
- Post Question on Quora (and other question forums) Try answering questions (with links to your startup of course, but only where appropriate) for one hour, three days a week. After one month, look at your analytics to see how successful Quora has been as an acquisition channel.
- Post a screenshot of the app with the link on Dribbble, DesignerNews, and other niche forums. Don’t limit yourself to the “Legendary Three.”
- Post on Craigslist, Eventbrite, Meetup: Launch a competition, campaign or event to test your app or advertise it on these platforms. Offer money, discounts, or pizza. Get creative!
- Post on Dubbler. Promote your blog posts or content having to do with your app’s niche on Dubbler (now Yappie) – a 60-second audio social network.
- Post an answer on Google Search: Leave comments on the top five to 10 search results. On a related note, you can search your keyword on Google and find the top five to 10 articles then leave a similar comment. Insider tip:Â You can search that keyword on Google Keyword Planner to see how much search volume it gets. If it gets more than 5,000-10,000 per month it’s probably worth commenting. Anything less is up to you!
- Twitter: Use Crowdfire to follow your competitor followers
- Facebook: Use Facebook Insights to see viral posts, that way you can cater your message to topics already generating traffic.
- Instagram: The post description area is sacred ground; comment on your own post with any related #hashtags you want to use, and it’ll have the same impact as including them in the description.
For more information and tips on how to grow your business rapidly, visit Souffrant Ntim’s site at csouffrantntim.com, and check out her Haiti Tech Summit, happening June 6, 2017.
Sequoia Blodgett is the Technology Editor for Black Enterprise, Silicon Valley. She is also the founder of 7AM, a lifestyle, media platform, focused on personal development, guided by informed, pop culture.