Get users to have a community, have a community to get users 🔄
Hi everyone,
Hope you are all doing well
I recently finished the MVP for my project SOCCA, which is a chat application that connects strangers for a few minutes, by matching them into 1 to 1 chat sessions. It is organised around philosophical questions, so think:
- What's the difference between Hate Speech and Freedom of Speech?
- Free will vs. determinism: To what extent, if any, can you shape your own life?
for instance but there are also around 50+ other topics people can chat about.
The application relies heavily on networking effects. The more users are using it, the more valuable and useful the application becomes as it increases the chances of matching. Promoting the application and increasing the use base is obviously the normal course of actions here. I have validated the idea with my core audience (i.e. people interested in philosophy and discussing philosophy questions) but I haven’t promoted it just yet. While I received great feedback on the idea/concept itself, one of the main issues I had when I got people to test the application, was that they tested it out at different times so most of them were not able to find a match and actually experienced the main purpose of the application.
For those who have projects where the community is the core value proposition of the product/service you are offering, what are some mechanisms or features that you implemented to increase the engagement of the first users and early adopters?
One of the suggestions I received from someone who tested it out was to set up a sort of agenda / calendar with multiple slots a day so that people can visit the application around the same time and increase their chances of matching. I loved the idea and have since implemented the feature.
What have you implemented yourself to get the first users engage with your service and beat the "get users to have a community, have a community to get users" until you get a large enough user base?
