Comment on TrialIPO (suggested by Carleen Hawn)

After sitting on the fence, I can no longer continue to watch this farce. Is it only me or this seems to me someone is trying to wear the cheap marketing hat by trying to submit his “idea/startup” to a site and then get a swarm of “really interested and enthusiastic peope” who only sit and write about how cool is the startup or how they’re waiting for the article on gigaom/foundread.
Who ever behind this, let me give you some advices, since I care about the community and since I do believe you missed the concept of the site.
Foundread isnt about startups but more about the idea behind and the entrepreneurs.
if you wish to get some coverage, you can submit your idea to techcrunch or gigaom and ask for a review. if this is up to me, you can get 56 peoples requesting to see an article on this startup and I will still not be interested to read it.
Because a) it isnt what i am looking for in foundread – im looking for personal stories, tips and ideas of entrepreneurs. b) it doesnt add any value to the community (and yes, the community isnt 16 peoples).

So the next advices will be more a kind of preferred code of conduct on foundread (it is my own view of course):
1) _Build an identity_ Try to post a bio and a picture, credibility is something you will need to work very hard on, it is rewarding at the end. Believe me, i’m experiencing it everyday.
2) _Contribute_ Never try to over-market you idea or startup. The relationship on foundread is a 2 ways relationships. You need to give to other people and then they will embrace you. Try to give tips or personal stories. Comment on stories and fire up debate. The more you will do that, the more you’ll build credibility and trust around you. Isnt business based on trust?
3) _Market yourself_ You’re giving enough to the community and they love you? How do you market yourself? Via the bio. Thats the place where you should put linkd about who you. What you do. Where you worked. It is something that people want to stumble upon after knowing you more.
Think of it as an advertisement. The more relevant and intersting, the more leads you will get from your bio. A click on your bio after reading your bio is worth much more than 100 clicks on your link on a cheap and not interesting comment. This is mostly due because whoever goes to your bio really wants to know about you and read about your company.
4) _Comment_ Comment. Comment. Comment. The only way to get the attention of other users is to contribute to the community. Fire up debate. Give another angle of a story. Ask questions. Those are all valuable contribution and they help building a rich conversation.
The way I see it, there was no interaction on this “idea” and I didnt get any real value from the 16 peoples commenting here (apart the fact they really really want to see an article of this startup).
5) _Submit original content_ Submit original content, idea and personal stories. Sometimes you will find out that catching the eye of the editor is much more easy while submitting an original idea. It doesnt take 16 people to get to write a story. In fact many stories were written either after an original comment on one of the story were made or after submitting an idea which only 2 or 3 people requested to read. At the end of the day, the editor of foundread decides whats interesting or what isnt.
6) _Do not use clones_ Registering one user is very important since you’re building your brand and credibility around your personality. Sure you could sign up for another user (for those with personality disorder) but signing up more users than that is just silly. You wont have the time and energy to put in each users like you’re supposed to.
7)_The adter foundread effect_ Tthe journey doesnt end at foundread. i expected to read a lot about you in trialipo after seeing this comment. Not because this is interesting or something else but because I wanted to know who was behind this. Having a blog would have satisfied me and would give additional information on you and the company after bouncing from foundread to your site. Dont expect users to sign up for a product solely because they’re told its great. Respect you users, they are a little smarter than that.

finally, hope I wasnt harsh with you but it seems that sometimes people miss the whole point of the marketing process. Once upon a time, building a brand required you little interaction with the community and lot of money.
Today in the new area, brand are built around communities and on a constant interaction in-between the users and between the brand and the users. You need to be interesting, give a clear value proposition and reward active and interactive users of your product.
It is cheaper and take sometime longer than expected , but the outcome is great and the effect 1000 times more than cheap marketing trick.

hope i was informative enough. Now let’s start the debate.

*apology for the formatting. It was posted on the fly using my E61.

About Adam Benayoun
Adam Benayoun is a serial entrepreneur. CEO and founder at Lionite, he currently develops Octabox, which provides a Web platform combined with a professional social network for small businesses and freelancers. If you'd like to share your past experiences and discuss, you can contact him at adam [at] octabox dot com, Check out his profile at Facebook or LinkedIn.

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