Article 61

9 Ways to Take Your Site from One to One Million Users

By Kevin Rose

08 October 2009 | Category: Web Apps

In this video from The Future of Web Apps London (FOWA), Kevin Rose, founder of Digg, WeFollow and Revision3, shares 9 things he did to increase his users to 1,000,000 and beyond.

Here's a quick bullet-point summary. You can watch the video, view the presentation slides.

If you enjoy this article, you'll love The Future of Web Apps Miami. Speakers include: Twitter, Mint.com, Gary Vaynerchuk, jQuery, Reddit and more. Buy your ticket now.

#1. Ego

Ask yourself: Does this feature increase the users self-worth or stoke the ego?
If a user is contributing to my system, what emotional rewards do they walk away with? What (visible) rewards will they receive?

#2. Simplicity

Stop over building features
Pick 2-3 things to focus on
Ask yourself: Is there anything I can take out of this feature?

#3. Build & Release

Stop thinking you understand your users
Learn from what they’re actually doing on your site, not what you think they’ll do
Decide on what you’re going to build… and build it (avoid analysis paralysis)
Build, release, iterate, and repeat

#4. Hack The Press

Invite only system (Pownce, Digg v3)
Talk to the junior bloggers
Attend parties for events you can’t afford – network w/influencers, bring a demo

#5. Connect with your community

Start a podcast (it’s OK if not everyone listens)
Throw a launch party, then yearly/quarterly events – invite the press/influencers personally – don’t tell the bar
Engage w/the community, be an active participant your own ecosystem

#6. Advisors

What technical problems are you going to have?
Advisors can be helpful in a whole slew of areas (marketing/hiring/bizdev)
Stock compensation, typically not a board seat, solid advisors help during fund raising

#7. Leverage your userbase to spread the word

#8. Does your product provide value for 3rd party sites?

#9. Analyze your traffic

Install Google analytics
Entrance sources (search?)
Paths through site
Top exit pages

The Video

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Comments

http://www.twittter.com/sheila_aero Sheila

Thanks for this Ryan :)

Great talk Kevin ! Keep going.
http://www.parisvega.com Paris Vega

Sweet. Good insights here.
http://phollow.fr Rydgel

Very interesting. Thank you.
http://www.carina-franz.com Carina

Very good tips (especially #1 and #3.1 fighting website developer’s narcissism ;). Would love to watch the video – where is it?
Ryan Carson

The video is in the post above, but if that’s not working, just head to http://vimeo.com/6905398
http://blogs.zdnet.com/weblife Andrew Mager

Awesome post Kevin!!
http://www.ryvondesigns.com Pam – Ryvon Designs

Love the way you broke it down into actual actions. I think one item we all miss out on is interact and be an active participant. Often and too easily we fall back into the role of watching our Google Analytics….but forget to reach out and talk to our members. Thank Heavens for social media….

I look forward to what others have to add!
http://www.openindie.com Kieran Masterton

Fantastically useful and practical advice. Thanks Kevin!
http://www.avasilcaidaniel.com Daniel

About point #2. Simplicity – learn from google, 37signal, facebook and others.
Yes, must keep it simple which means fast. I’ve saw a yahoo developer video presentation some time ago, in which the speaker make it clear that in a web app is more important the speed then the number of options, tools…

About point #9. Analyze your traffic – analytics is a great tool, but is far away from complete, you can analyze general data but you can not trace the path a particular user has fallow.
I remember an old free php stats script, this script was great for this simple reason, you could trace the path an user fallow an see exact what pages this user visited. In analytics such thing is not possible yet, who knows , maybe in the future.

About #3. Build & Release, is true you must first release an then you can analyze, what the users think…and act
http://www.edwardbenson.com Ted

This is a great list. Thanks for posting it.

… but why shouldn’t you tell the bar?
http://bstankowski.pl Bartek Stańkowski

#2 and #3 remind me the 37Signal’s Getting Real book (which I love).
http://www.educationtechnologyblog.com Jonathan Wylie

Some interesting and valid points there. I look forward to trying a few to increase my own numbers.
http://www.livedigitally.com Jeremy Toeman

good stuff, but really there should be a “be lucky” item in here somewhere. let’s face it – for every site with a million users that follows this advice, there’s dozens (or more) out there who do the same things but get nowhere. there is unquestionably a luck factor involved. and there’s truly nothing wrong with that IMHO btw…
http://www.thesaleswhisperer.com Wes Schaeffer

How do I get my site to 10,000,000? :-)
Great post.
http://www.twitter.com/wdohmen wdohmen

Awesome video and some really useful tips that I can apply to my intern assignment, looking forward to more vids from the event :D
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jas

great!!
http://computersservicing.blogspot.com/ venkat

Really some inspiring ways that help bloggers, thanks for sharing .
http://www.myphotographer.co.za myphotographer

Great advice. Now I need to try and adhere to it.
http://www.orchidbox.com frank vitetta

great post. you have just mentioned what we tell our clients. It is hard work nowdays to grow a community.

I would add unique content, which google loves.

Unfortunately most of clients want to hear of just quick wins.

Do you know any?
http://www.webcoursesbangkok.com Carl – Web Courses Bangkok

Brilliant! I really liked the “Build, release, iterate, and repeat” it is so true that you can think you know your users but until you put your app/site out there, you know nothing.
http://www.twitterfools.com TwitterFools

Great presentation. Lots of useful information. #2 Simplicity really resonates!
http://www.buffalo-shop.de Schuhe

Thanks for the share. such a great post.
jake

great post… don’t stop the rock
http://www.gigglecomputer.com Phaoloo

Nice concepts, that’s no wonder why he has many successful sites. We can apply his rules on our sites and make them better.
http://www.killerpuzzlegames.com Puzzlesgames234

I Very interesting. Thank you.
Puzzles Games
http://ridwan326.wordpress.com Ridwan

Nice… Loved It… :)
http://www.neverslair-blog.net Oliver Leitner

Thank you for the nice roundup on ideas, i guess some of them had to be spoken out so web devs and designers start memorizing them.

however:

on point 3 subpoint 2

letting the user totally take over the decision of content might work for projects like digg, but what if youre trying to build an expert page on a topic, that could bring alot of instability into your knowledge base.
http://ixld.com Web Strategy

Awesome Post, I particularly like the focus on EGO.

I’d never put that much weight on the social capital value of followers on someone’s twitter profile.

The comment about the A list celebs touting their twitter ID’s on Radio is so true, no paid endorsement deals, yet Ashton Couture and Paris Hilton are hard at work pumping up their follower count.

Nice social engineering!!!
http://www.practiseseo.co.cc/ Javs

Nice article but why don’t have some explanation for two of the points in between.
http:///www.BigOmaha.com Jeff Slobotski

Great presentation by Kevin—so many good points and information in this one!
http://www.weblogbetter.com Brandon Cox

Alright then – time to get started! I only have about 998,000 to go!!
http://www.bendesign.eu Bendesign

Great Article. Kepp it simple and stupid.
http://www.ii-studio.com Worajedt S.

Great tips. I’ll looking to use some of them soon. :)
welson xiong

I woke up this morning reading and watching this video. It’s really heuristic for me. Thanks for your sharing. It’s really helpful and wonderful! However, a short sentence “don’t tell the bar” in #5 confuses me. could you explain it for me? Thanks again!
http://www.jayphilips.com Jay Philips

Great post. People shouldn’t go overboard on a site, keep it clean and usable.
ADEDIJI AYOBAMI- NIGERIA

Kevin,
These tips are fundamental and informative as well as educating. Am going to apply all of them.
Thanks you.
http://www.usertesting.com Amanda McNeill

Just to add to #9 – do user testing! A great experience helps to ensure repeat visits. Here is an article from Website Magazine you may find interesting it reviews usability tools http://bit.ly/32mqlQ

I am affiliated with usertesting.com but the article covers several tools.

Amanda
http://www.clippingimages.com clippingimages

These 9 tips are really great. Very informative article . Thanks for sharing this nice post.
http://solimap.com Olivier Bonnaure

Hi there, Those tips are really great !
I’m trying to raise up my visitors for http://solimap.com but it’s very hard :/

Let you know if those tips are really great ;)
http://www.memakemonster.com Steve Spatucci

Whew – great presentation, but the most unnatural, forced use of slang (“grok”) I’ve ever heard. It sounds like he actually planned to use the term somewhere, shoehorned it in… it pained me to hear it.

Other than that, very nice, especially the reinforcing of keeping things simple and avoiding feature creep.
http://spiraltrac.com John Sanford

Looking forward to implementing all these great suggestions, along with what ever I can get out of “Crush It!” by Garyvee.

Seems like the hardest thing to get, when no one knows who you are, is traffic.
http://meadowfete.com Meadow Fete Media

This post takes its own advice about simplicity and avoiding “analysis paralysis.” Great. Thank you!
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,..] carsonified.com is one useful source of information on this issue,..]
http://sportzup.com Sportzup

Great article. Long live sport!
http://myperfectweddingtips.blogspot.com/ victoria stephanie

the tips is great, but i need more detail informatioan for each step..thanks
http://webdesignsurvivalist.com Montia

Thanks for this post. Some good points here that I’ve never thought about. The Build & Release points are crucial.
http://elucidmarketing.com Elucid Marketing

Thanks for the great information. Elucid Marketing Group will implement this into future strategies for web dev projects. I like the simple outline of critical points, thanks again!
http://www.mdostudio.com m a r c o

Awesome insight on the video! Thanks!
http://www.mebreaks.com Rajib Roy

Is it enough for online website marketing.
http://vietflex.com vietflex

Thanks for post, this help me more!
http://designdroplets.com Raph

Thanks for posting this talk and thanks Kevin for the great pointers and tips.
http://phpdev.ro Andrei Gabreanu

Excellent video. Thank you for the post and looking forward for more great talks like this. Kevin’s points are actually very useful and will surely help me in my entrepreneurship work.

However, Kevin talked about spymaster at a moment and i didn’t really understand if a representative of the spymaster team would talk in the conference or not (if so, is there a video posted somewhere perhaps?)
http://www.mysmsbank.com ASAD

Thanks for really useful information.
http://www.antonrsa.co.za AntonRSA

Excellent video and write up. Always good to see how the experts think!
http://httpbench.net Colum

Wow, great article. It really could be useful to people!
http://www.smartroutetour.com/ Smartroutetour

really good……..
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One of the best realize. Thanks for sharing such nice post.
Thanks Kevin Rose.
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Topics

Learn with Treehouse

9 Ways to Take Your Site from One to One Million Users

By Kevin Rose

08 October 2009 | Category: Web Apps

#1. Ego

#2. Simplicity

#3. Build & Release

#4. Hack The Press

#5. Connect with your community

#6. Advisors

#7. Leverage your userbase to spread the word

#8. Does your product provide value for 3rd party sites?

#9. Analyze your traffic

The Video

Other Posts You Might Find Interesting

Comments

Think Vitamin Radio
Episode #34: Amazon Fire and Responsive Roundtable

Advisory Board

Aarron Walter

Ethan Marcotte

Molly Holzschlag

Paul Boag

Jeff Veen

Ryan Carson

Topics

Learn with Treehouse

9 Ways to Take Your Site from One to One Million Users

By Kevin Rose

08 October 2009 | Category: Web Apps

#1. Ego

#2. Simplicity

#3. Build & Release

#4. Hack The Press

#5. Connect with your community

#6. Advisors

#7. Leverage your userbase to spread the word

#8. Does your product provide value for 3rd party sites?

#9. Analyze your traffic

The Video

Other Posts You Might Find Interesting

Comments

Think Vitamin RadioEpisode #34: Amazon Fire and Responsive Roundtable

Advisory Board

Aarron Walter

Ethan Marcotte

Molly Holzschlag

Paul Boag

Jeff Veen

Ryan Carson

Think Vitamin Radio
Episode #34: Amazon Fire and Responsive Roundtable