Xobni's path to 3 Million downloads and the PR strategies involved

1. No one cared about my stupid little startup(and they don’t care about yours either) Matt Brezina Co-founder, Xobni Matt@xobni.com Twitter: @brezina

2. Xobni’s Path To 3 Million Downloads(a 3.5 year journey) Paid Drivers Nerd Scarcity Invite Beta Public Beta Private Beta Iteration GA Stealth

4. Very boring website: No screenshots, product descriptions

5. Traffic from blogging – problems with email & entrepreneurship

6. Personal relationships with press and demo under embargo(ask for help before you need it) 1.5 years 50 users Paid Drivers Nerd Scarcity Invite Beta Public Beta Private Beta Iteration GA Stealth

8. “Too much demand”

9. Added 10k users in 1 day – everyone else sign-up2 months 10k users Paid Drivers Nerd Scarcity Invite Beta Public Beta Private Beta Iteration GA Stealth

11. Badge program

12. Added users from beta list when we needed lab rats3 months 12k users Paid Drivers Nerd Scarcity Invite Beta Public Beta Private Beta Iteration GA Stealth

14. Maintained forgiveness of beta users

15. Nearly 100% conversion on clicked invites (users were self selecting people who’d want xobni)3 months 50k users Paid Drivers Nerd Scarcity Invite Beta Public Beta Private Beta Iteration GA Stealth

17. Wanted to accelerate WOM & virality for upcoming pop

18. 100k user beta list

19. Focused on performance, user ed & virality3 months 60k users Paid Drivers Nerd Scarcity Invite Beta Public Beta Private Beta Iteration GA Stealth

21. Officially launched Xobni open beta in NYT

22. 95k web visitors on day 1

23. 70k visitors on day 2!!

24. Used demand for private beta as proxy for need of a solution to info overload and the value of a people focused inbox1 year 1.5M users Paid Drivers Nerd Scarcity Invite Beta Public Beta Private Beta Iteration GA Stealth

26. With product/market fit

28. Official adoption in enterprises

29. The ability to start charging 3 months 2M users Paid Drivers Nerd Scarcity Invite Beta Public Beta Private Beta Iteration GA Stealth

31. PR & virality aren’t predictably scalable

32. Ain’t nothing wrong with spending money to make money

33. Need business model to make the sausage machine work6 months 3M users Paid Drivers Nerd Scarcity Invite Beta Public Beta Private Beta Iteration GA Stealth

34. When we got PR help In-house & PR Firm PR Firm PR Contractor (but mostly me) Me  Paid Drivers Nerd Scarcity Invite Beta Public Beta Private Beta Iteration GA Stealth

35. No one cares about your stupid little startup6 tips to make them care

36. Tip 1. Tie yourself to a bigger trend The web inside your inbox Facebook crossing into the business world Email is the oldest online social network Enterprise software is now going bottoms up Email overload is drowning the information worker Microsoft sucks

37. Case Study: Email Me Instead I had 10k users and new blog/press relationships, before Xobni was even in public beta

38. Tip 2 Take every opportunity to meet a journalist in person Get product feedback Social events Make introductions Base your company where the media is

39. Case Study: WSJ

40. Tip 3. Engage heavily with users – positive WOM is even better than press coverage

41. Case Study: Xobni Our 5th employee was customer support Elite Alpha forum of 500 users Phone call (and blog) with one user per week Special twitter handle for customer support Engineers do tech phone calls with users We send out a lot of tshirts

42. Tip 4. Journalists are lazy. Help them be lazy

43. Case Study: Xobni.com

44. Tip 5. Be a source of data

45. Case Studies: Tivo, Trulia, Facebook

46. Now, 3 million people know about – and care about - my stupid little startup Matt Brezina Co-founder, Xobni Matt@xobni.com Twitter: @brezina