If you’re an entrepreneur, you’ve likely come across this problem more than once, whether it was a consumer internet product, blog, or website you were trying to create. In short, the problem can be summed up as follows:
You need users or readers to make money (ads or products). Users or readers will only be interested in your website if other people are reading/using/buying. How do you solve this issue?
How to solve the chicken and egg problem w/
- Blogs
- Forums & Online Communities
- Services (Consulting, Contracting, etc)
1. Blogs
You’d be surprised, but the answer to this question is relatively simple. Let’s say you want to start blogging about a topic, but you don’t have any previous authority in the space and you don’t have a following.
People will only be interested in your tips and advice if you have credibility, so how can you get readers if you don’t already have readers and/or credibility in the space?
Interview People Who Have Credibility
This is the easiest way to get over the chicken and egg problem when blogging. This is how I started with CrowdCrux and how I continue to provide value to readers. Not only will you learn a tremendous amount about your subject (and pass that on to your readers), but you will also form relationships and new connections.
Link to Resources
You don’t always have to personally answer questions in a blog post. For example, if the reader wants to know “How do I get PR for my new startup company,” instead of providing your own advice or interviewing a PR professional, you could link to 10-20 websites, blogs, forums, and online groups that will help answer this question. You could then do a closing statement recommending a particular piece of PR software like BuzzStream (CRM tool) or Haro (Get free publicity by being an expert on topics).
Research Posts and Conduct Experiments
With some articles, I can just pretty much do a brain dumb and write up my cumulative knowledge into a useful post, but most of the time I need to do a little research. There’s nothing wrong with this!
By citing websites and linking to other bloggers, you will strengthen the credibility of your articles and the chance that other bloggers will share your new article with their followers via social media (because they see you linked to them).
You could also get over the hurdle of not having credibility by conducting experiments! For example, if you wanted to advise readers on the merits of advertising on Twitter, why not spend $50 on your own twitter ads for particular keywords and post your results with screenshots?
My Experience
Solving the chicken and egg problem with blogs takes time (think 6 months). If you consistently deliver remarkable content, build up your social networks, email list, and keep promoting your content to the right audience, you will begin to get repeat readers, comments, and be linked to by other blogs.
You will then slowly begin to see your content ranking better in google, which will bring new readers, along with more social shares, subscribers, etc. The key to solving this system is to first concentrate on producing remarkable content over an initial hump of 6 months, along with marketing it appropriately. The readers will come in time. As as you get more readers, your credibility will increase until you are considered an “expert” in the space.
2. Forums and Online Communities
As I wrote about in my previous post, building an online community takes time. You need users to make advertising revenue and users will only engage in a discussion if they see other people having discussions on the website.
So how do you jumpstart the discussion?
Put your Email Out There
Generating a sizable email list from scratch is tough. One way you can get around this is to simply put your email out there. This way, when members of your target demographic get in touch for whatever reason, you can direct them to the forum and give them some kind of incentive to sign up and make a post. I did this to jumpstart my forum.
Provide Free Advice and Feedback
Eventually, users will find your forum via google and social media because one of your posts answers a question they have (like how do I do ‘x’), but in the meantime, while you are building up an index of posts, you need to give users a reason to want to come to your forum. What will they get out of this?
Free feedback, advice, and promotions are a great way to do this. Yes, it’s a huge time drain, but it will also bolster your credibility in the community. If your feedback is helpful, you may also be able to get some consulting gigs out of it.
Give Users A Reason To Come Back
I’d recommend modifying your forum or community theme so that 1: You are generating an email list from day 1 and 2: you make it the default setting that users will get a notification when there is a reply to one of their topics.
Don’t count on people to come back to your website, give them a reason to. Whether that’s email updates or notifications, it will improve engagement and help jumpstart the forum.
Kill Spam Before it Spreads
Not only will spam posts that link out to other toxic websites hurt your SEO ranking, but they will also deter new users from joining the community. No one wants to be a part of a community that looks like it’s not managed or is growing weeds. Kill spam before it spreads to avoid turning away new or existing users.
Create Original Content
I like to treat my forum like a mini blog. I try to create original content every now and again that answer users’ questions and almost have the layout of a blog post. Google loves original/quality content and spending time creating it will improve your search engine rankings.
Again – This takes time. At one point, you will see that you have thousands of users with X number of posts and consistent daily traffic, but it won’t happen overnight.
3. Service-Based Companies
My first service-based company was technically Books2eBooks, but after that I also started a web development company.
Here are a few tips I learned for getting initial clients.
Give a Big Discount
This is kind of a no-brainer, but offer to do the work for free for your first client! Mark Cuban in his book, How to Win at the Sport of Business, describes how he offered to do his first client job for no-pay (except cost of software he was selling) and also help the customer install it.
We also gave big discounts to our initial clients, because they were taking a risk hiring us. Just make sure they understand you’re only discounting the price, not the value you will deliver.
Get Testimonials and Show Past Work
LinkedIn recommendations are a great way to show that you’re a capable and talented worker. Any way that you can convince potential clients that you’ve performed well in the past via concrete recommendations or bodies of work will go a long way. If possible, try to get a recommendation from a previous boss, teacher, coworker who has some credibility in your company’s new industry.
I know it may seem like you are setting up a service-based business, but really you’re just going to be applying for jobs, whether it’s for you starting out or your company further down the road (contract/subcontract). You should treat getting your first client like applying for a job. Sell yourself!
Passion and Personalized Attention
The #1 thing you have going for you when you are starting out, aside from your technical abilities, is your passion and the level of personalized attention you can give a client. Be sure to stress these selling points when you are trying to reel in your first customer, because it’s a huge advantage.
Surprise Your Client
I love the phrase, “under-promise and over-deliver.” There’s nothing better than spending your hard-earned money on a service provider and being genuinely impressed or surprised with their performance. It just kind of makes you want to recommend them, because they honestly did a good job!
Even adding in little surprises like a handwritten note after the project is complete or referring a new customer/client to your client can go a long way.
Ask For Referrals and Testimonials
Finally, it’s paramount that once you render remarkable services, you ask for both a testimonial and a referral. You will use this testimonial to secure future clients, which will jumpstart your business.
Conclusion
Above, I’ve put together a few ways to solve the chicken-and-egg problem. However, this list is by no means complete. If you’d like my input on how to solve the chicken-and-egg problem for your business, leave a comment below!
I’d also love to hear whether or not you found this article to be helpful :).