IV. Launching

How to build a street team

You can’t do this alone.

To have a successful launch, you’re going to need help from your network. Why? The more people you have talking about your product, the more reach you’ll achieve.

Amplification

The web has a lot of noise. Because of that noise, most products don’t break into the public consciousness, and therefore don’t get discovered. This is especially evident when you look at Reddit, and what rises to the front page:¹

Reddit rankings over the course of a day

On Reddit, when a submission is ranked higher than 50, it climbs out of the noise below. Once it’s ranked higher than 25, it’s featured prominently on the front page.

To rise above the noise on the Internet, you’ll need a critical mass of people who are sharing your product online. Amplification is a technique I use to create this momentum.

Essentially, Amplification has two parts:

• Create something worth sharing
• Engage with online networks that can help you share it

You’ll need the help of both personal networks (your friends, the people you interact with on Twitter), and larger online networks (Reddit, Hackers News, and Product Hunt).

The first step is to engage with your network and build your street team.

Building a street team

A street team is a group of fans who want to help you with your launch. They’ll generate word of mouth for your product by sharing it with their networks. How do you get people to assist you in this way? You ask them!

Make a list of everyone you know that might be interested in supporting your campaign.² Here’s a list of people to consider:

• Early beta testers
• Enthusiastic email subscribers
• Your colleagues
• Your mentors
• People you’ve interacted with at events
• Members from groups and clubs you’re a part of
• Friends and family

Once you have your list, reach out to each person and invite them individually. Here’s an email template you can use:

Hi [name],

As you know, I’ve been working on [my product]. The aim is to help [this type of person] with [this problem]. I’m about to launch on October 15th.

I need your help.

If this launch is going to be a success, I need to spread the word. I’m wondering if you could help me with two things:

1. Today: share my current landing page with your friends. Here’s is the link: http://yourlandingpage.com.

2. On launch day (October 15): submit my product to Product Hunt.

Is this something you’d be willing to do?

Cheers,

[your name]

Remember: these should be people you have a relationship with. Every once in a while, it’s fine to ask your friends for a favor. Launching a new product is one of those times!

Gaining traction on online networks

Your product might lend itself to sites like Product Hunt, Hacker News, Reddit and Designer News. If so, it makes sense to have your street team help you gain traction on these sites.

First, let’s talk about voting rings. Websites like Reddit want excellent content. What they don’t want are groups of people (or bots) continuously upvoting each other en masse that bring low-quality submissions to the top. Each of these sites has algorithms to detect this type of behavior. The penalty is usually to ban the users involve (invalidate their accounts).

So, should you ask your friends to submit and upvote your submissions?

Personally, I think it’s fine; especially if your content is helpful and applicable to that community. Truthfully, it’s difficult to “game” these platforms. Through algorithms and moderation, they’re usually able to weed out the bad stuff, even if a submission gets an initial boost. Ultimately, for something to stay at the top, it has to be high quality.

I feel like Product Hunt addresses this distinction well in their FAQ:³

May I ask people to upvote for my product? Please don’t. People should upvote things they genuinely like or find interesting, not because they were peer pressured to do so. Feel free to spread the word and bring friends into the discussion, but asking or incentivizing people to upvote may trigger the algorithm to drop the product in the ranks or remove it from the front page entirely.

I recommend following these guidelines:

1. Don’t send people a direct link! Ask people to go directly to the site and search for the title of your submission manually.
2. You can have friends upvote your story, but do it prudently (and don’t have the same friends vote every time). It’s best if you can have different people from different countries vote on your story. This can be difficult to mobilize; I’ve found the best results in sending ten people an instant message right after submitting.
3. Announce it to your email list, and ask them to “share it, submit it and upvote it” if they like it. Having a large, diverse, audience will reduce the chance of being flagged by the voting ring detector.
4. Submitting your post to secondary networks first can be a good tactic. For example, if your story is relevant to designers, you could submit it to Designer News first. Often, a story makes it to the top of one network will be cross-posted to another.
5. Increase your chances of upvotes by posting at the right time (7 am - 12 pm EST) and having a great title.

People in your corner

Having a group who can help promote your product is a huge advantage in any market.

“Superfans will spread the word further, wider, and more passionately than any advertising could.”

- Jason Fried, David Heinemeier Hansson, Rework

Building a street team is hard work, and takes time, but pays high dividends. You won’t be a lonely maker telling the world about your product; you’ll have help.

Footnotes

1. The reddit Front Page is Not a Meritocracy, toddwschneider.com/posts/the-reddit-front-page-is-not-a-meritocracy ↩

2. If you’re looking for help on building your network, I go into specific tactics in this chapter: Get more leads. ↩

3. www.producthunt.com/faq#may-i-ask-people-to-upvote-for-my-product ↩