It's a challenge to find your first web and mobile app users. If you're a small startup with little to no resources getting new users can be difficult and costly.
Full post of how 23 web and mobile app startups found their first users here: http://autosend.io/how-to-get-first-users/
But don't fret. We have the exact techniques 7 website and mobile app startups used to get millions of users from nothing. Some of the startups got their first users with a zero dollar marketing budget. Some startups found their first users by using clever growth hacks. Some startups even found their users by joining and sharing on niche communities like Reddit.
If you want to learn the growth hacks 23 web and mobile startups used to find their first 1,000 users or first 1,000,000 users, read more at http://autosend.io/how-to-get-first-users/
3. GROOVE
Groove reached out to 40 publications including The Next Web.
Their The Next Web feature brought hundreds of signups and
created Twitter buzz about their service and company. They also
shared a "behind the scenes" blog post about their success and
reached #1 on Hacker News for half a day bringing more users.
5. PIPEDRIVE
After four months of little sales Pipedrive reached out to
influencers that spread the word about their app. They also ran
a special deal for cost-conscious startups on AppSumo.
7. iDONETHIS
The iDoneThis team posted their tool on Hacker News with the
hook that they built it to keep their New Years Resolution. After
it was posted it was picked up by The Next Web for their first
150 signups. Then they cross-posted to 3 subreddits and got
400 subscribers. A month later they sent a cold-email to
Lifehacker.com, got covered, and earned 4,500 signups.
8. TINTDISPLAY YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA FEEDS
From 0 to 10,000 Users
PARTNERS + SEO + GUEST BLOGS
FIRST USERS FROM
9. TINT
Tint developed partnerships with website builders and third-party
app stores to get in front of their target audience. They then
focused on SEO to cut their customer acquisition costs from $40
per customer to $0 per customer. Tint also used guest blogging to
talk to their audience and earn high-quality backlinks to their site.
11. BAZZART
The Bazzart team made localization a priority from day one
translating their app into many languages. This helped them rank
well in the Russian App Store. They also researched their chances of
ranking for particular keywords and even researched keywords to
rank well in other countries. Lastly, they got coverage from a major
publication they pitched by creating a collage of the writer's pins on
Pinterest.
12. I AM A PLAYER
MOBILE FOOTBALL GAME
From 0 to 4,000,000 Users
CROSS PROMO + FB ADS + OPEN GRAPH
FIRST USERS FROM
13. I AM A PLAYER
The I Am Player team uses highly targeted Facebook ads based on
demographics and psycho-graphics to acquire users for their social
game. The team also integrated with Open Graph to have their users'
activity shared on their Facebook feed, which lead to huge numbers of
viral installs. Then the team used a cross-promotion tool like Appplifier
and MauDau to bring in about 30,000 clicks in 3 days for FREE.
14. AUTOCAD WS
DRAWINGS ON YOUR PHONE
From 0 to 10,000,000 Users
BLOGS + SEO + LOCALIZATION
FIRST USERS FROM
15. AUTOCAD WS
After talking to other app developers, the VisualTao team (which was
later acquired by Autodesk) decided to target small and medium blogs
that were easier to reach instead of large blogs to get better, longer
lasting traffic to their site. They also went beyond localized app
descriptions and localized their promotional materials which doubled
their downloads.