Come for the Ride…

Even though on the surface the used car site hasn’t changed much in the last week, we’re working pretty hard in the background revising code, making deals, challenging gladiators and adding more cars. All-in-all, I would say we’re about 2-3 weeks away from a real push in marketing so what better time than now to study techniques and make observations?

The first and probably one of the easier sites most web 2.0 startups go after is KillerStartups.com. The site overall has great design, an easy submission process and if approved, the team gives you a snappy review and something to think about. But the question is, does it drive traffic?

There are probably no straight answers to that question as I’ve seen a number of sites featured on KillerStartups that I could care less about. On the flip side, occasionally I do stumble upon a few that really pique my interest.

I went to Quantcast to see what kind of traffic KillerStartups get on a daily basis. I would love it if someone can double check my work and confirm what I’m seeing - but from what I can tell… KillerStartups gets more traffic in the latter part of the week (Thursdays and Fridays) vs. the middle of the week (Tuesdays and Wednesdays) when traffic seems to dip; sometimes by as much as 4-7k users.

Would it do us more good if try to get our site featured during the latter part of the week vs. the middle? Is it even something that can be controlled or is it based solely on when their editors get to the submissions? If anyone has any experience - I would love to get some feedback.

This past weekend when our team met, we got into a serious discussion about upgrading our server to a dedicated machine that we would co-locate in Atlanta. While my friend at Booz Allen questioned why we would go this route when we’re not in the web hosting reseller business, we actually gave it a lot of thought and decided that this would be our cheapest, long term option.

So last weekend, for the first time in 5+ years, I went back to Dell.com and started spec’ing out high end servers. I think deep down inside, the geek in me would like to create something big enough that we can actually fill up a whole rack full of servers and say, “Look! That’s our piece of the internet” On the other hand, I know no one really cares about the hardware and our wallets really wanted to have nothing to do with my geeky dream.

But the fun part here is that co-located hosting is uncharted territory for us and this is one area I am looking forward to learning a lot about. My last venture had about 100,000 users and it certainly did not need any kind of extreme load balancing or backup solutions. However, with up to 16 million records per year for just vehicles plus other usage data we will be tracking, we basically need a kick ass machine just to handle the data load before we even worry about serving the site to any users.

This is where Dell in a coincidental moment, shined!

Not two days after us talking about the need to upgrade and actually looking at prices printed out on paper, a representative from Dell’s team contacted us and offered to invite us into their discount club. Apparently they found my YouNoodle.com post about our startup, liked what they saw and wanted to get us on the Dell train early so we can bring them along for the ride. (Apparently AutoTrader hosts with HP, so this could be a win for them if I get my rack of servers.)

Now, the marketing and timing here is purely coincidental, but we were more than happy to reaffirm our decision to shop for the dedicated server with Dell especially now that we could get the exact same server we wanted, add warranties and support AND save a few hundred dollars in the process.

Although some may say targeted advertising is scary and could potentially be like “big brother” with the amount of data it collects; I would have to say that as a consumer who knew exactly what he wanted, being able to add more discounts before I pulled the trigger really put me over the top for this vendor. If we were dilly-dallying before on our decision, this “just-in-time” coupon definitely won us over.

With that… we will definitely implement an online version of this sales technique on our web service to help dealers sell more vehicles.

Now that the site has launched, I’m looking forward to blogging more about advertising, marketing tests and of course, the details of the results. While I do think we will revisit the development side of things every now and then, what most entrepreneurs want to know is how to promote their blog or services to the masses.

If you have things you’ve tested or would like to see tested, we would love to hear from you. Feel free to drop us an email, send us blog comments or use the Skribit widget to the right. If the plan fits what we’re doing, we’d be happy to test it out for you and report back on the results.

When lil Bridget started her lemonade stand, she was already 10x better off than most internet startups. She had full support from her family, venture funding from FFF’s, a popular brick n mortar location, friends to help with marketing, and even though she didn’t need it, she probably had a web 2.0 name.

Although 9 out of 10 lemonade stands fail in their first week, most of them make money the day they started the business! The funny thing is, this is a better record than most internet startups I’ve seen or have been a part of.

There are many lessons to be learned here - many of which apply to online startups and their teams. If you were to analyze Bridget’s lemonade business, you’d find the success of the business had more to do with promotions and a lot less to do with the perfect lemonade.

When Bridget came up with the business idea, the first thing she did after drawing the lemonade stand on a napkin was to seek support from her parents. She went to them because she knew she would get seed money but she also knew the value of a viral campaign; the one her parents would start for her and result in half the neighborhood showing up.

Did it matter that the lemonade stand did not look the same as the one pictured on the napkin? No.

Did it matter that the lemonade itself could use a few taste tests to make sure it wasn’t nasty? No, not so much.

For Bridget, a certain level of business ignorance was bliss and instead of spending hours on perfecting the formula to her personal tastes, she would put the product out there and let the customers tell her their feedback and improve the product through iterations.

For her, the key to success is in the marketing; something most entrepreneurs fail miserably once they’re done building their idea. In today’s online world, most companies that start a new website equates to starting a lemonade stand in the middle of the desert. The idea may be great and may be greatly needed but you can’t just sit on your butt and wait for people to magically find you once the idea is built. On the flip side, you can’t run around like a lunatic spamming everyone with your new idea, so what’s an entrepreneur to do?

Taking a page from Bridget’s marketing plan, building hype and a viral campaign is a great technique to attract buyers on zero budget. However, before you get too excited and spam everyone you know and don’t know with your latest business idea, you need to understand the basics of a viral campaign and what makes it grow.

A viral campaign exists through personal interactions and from trusted sources; this is why viral campaigns work so well on social networks. For the same reason I wouldn’t contract a viral disease from a stranger that I’ve never interacted with, I wouldn’t accept a poor attempt at a viral campaign from them either.

In the example of the lemonade stand, Bridget’s parents had existing relationships with their neighbors and can spread word to those contacts about the new business. Notice how they didn’t call everyone they knew, just the people who are relevant for the information.

Building a viral campaign for your startup requires the use of the same tactics. A successful virus succeeds because it only transmits when it sees a suitable host. Your campaign should do the same when you are out there promoting your business. If you try anything else you stand to offend, spam and alienate future connections.

So if you have already built your idea, congratulations! You are now officially ahead of most other startups, including ours. However, instead of just sitting there waiting for things to happen, make sure you go out there and promote your website or service to the right people.

About a month ago, we had a guest blogger who shared his experiences on incorporating his business.  Incidentally, his experience helped our team when it came time for us to incorporate Easy Autos just a couple of weeks later.

We are now looking for additional guest bloggers to share whatever important lessons you may have learned along the way to reach your success.  If you’re interested, please email us at easyautos {at} gmail.com.

(We do ask that all submitted content are original and if accepted, won’t be reposted in verbatim elsewhere.)