Is this enough to guarantee success?

[AkosBlog]

Hi all,

I am the founder of a new startup ChilledLime.com. It is in the private alpha stage, which means it is locked for everyone (except me).
So to cover the development secrets until the site is ready, I set up a simple landing page... People can signup for an exclusive beta invite (so they will be the first ones to use the service).

When they signup they see this text:

Hi! Your signup was a success. Thanks!
Now, invite at least 3 friends using the buttons below to be the first one we invite.

(They also see some FB and TW etc. share buttons)
So this way I encourage them to share the page with their friends, to get even earlier access.

I think this tactic - which has already got some startups thousands of users- is a good way to make the whole project go viral... So basically to get many people to talk about the site.

Do you think so? Do you think if I go viral I will succeed? Or is this even a good way to go viral?
(success in case of startup = getting thousands of visitors -> getting funding -> getting acquired)

Also, can you please give some tips to get even more signups?

Thanks in advance

Regards,
Akos

[Econtinue]

Tons of visitors cant guarantee success and doesn't mean a lot of people will be talking about your site. Putting the social bla buttons on your site doesn't mean people will use them...

I don't think anyone can answer the question with an answer you'd like to hear. It depends on so many factors. If you can make ot go viral...awesome. But would it guarantee success ? I don't know...time and effort will tell.

Andre

[Ord Allenbea]

I would very much agree with the above post. Nobody can honestly answer your question. Building a site takes time and branding that site take even more time. Do not rely upon "share" buttons just to go viral for a new startup.

You are going to have to go out and do branding for your site, you will have to create magnetic content to engage and attract, as stated above there are so many factors involved.

[happy_man]

Personally, if I signed up to a site and got told to sign up 3 other people, I would be put off - it seems what the site has to offer isn't good enough to make people want to join anyway.

That was my initial thought. But I guess not everyone thinks like me, so I'm sure it would achieve what you want it to achieve. ChilledLime sounds interesting

[happy_man]

I may be getting a little philosophical now... but, I had another thought.

This tactic (your word) is not a good way to make the whole project go viral, as such, because 'going viral' describes a concept in which people share things or ideas willingly.

This tactic applies a condition to the concept which removes the 'willingly' part of people sharing things or ideas.

So... this tactic is a good way to make the whole project go 'something' - but I don't think it's viral.

[kju385]

Even if your plan succeeds, there is no guarrantee you'll be able to monetize your audience and potential traffic. Unless you have another plan for that?

getting thousands of visitors -> getting funding -> getting acquired

Your project should be carefully designed in order to get funding. Wishfull thinking and pure numbers probably won't be sufficient. I guess the success will depend on the topic it revolves around. Anyway, good luck

[snakeair]

This one is for the thread creator. Watch this video when you have some extra time.

From bootstrapping his company, to raising a seed round last year, to his company’s recent $8 million A round, Neil Capel exemplifies the grit and hustle typical in successful entrepreneurs. Capel founded Sailthru, an enterprise software-as-a-service company that uses clickstream data to individually tailor marketing emails to each user, which Capel says will exponentially increase the lifetime value of a customer email address.

Check out our interview with Capel to find out how he went from a consultant at Morgan Stanley to founding a company that will soon be expanding globally and his thoughts on when you should consider going full-time on your startup

Continued at: http://mashable.com/2012/02/09/neil-...startup-video/

BTW, i agree with what the previous posters have mentioned.

Also, it's good giving away beta invites and having a few hundred people playing around on your site. Work out all the bugs early and add additional features before you launch it to the public. Let's say you get 100 people doing stuff on your site at the same time, will your hosting package be able to handle this?

[ArwenTaylor]

I agree that you probably won't go viral unless the service you are offer is unique or tickles the public in some special way. However, I think it's a pretty cool way to get people to sign up to your site. Maybe the next step after you launch is to ask for reviews of your site in exchange for some special benefit.

[marknel]

It depends on the niche you are targeting..like health,beauty, IM are already saturated. Firstly you need to expose your site extensively and go for freebies in order to get it viral.Video marketing can also play a critical role in this regard.

[Kutcher]

i think your home page is avge but good...you can put your website into social media websites which is very powerful tool for marketing or anything....tell there to your visitors and try to put some more information on home page....you can put a slide show also....

[TWWB]

To make it go viral you are going to have to come up with an idea people are willing to share without forcing your people to share it. It could be something controversial, in your case to get people to debate it, you can make something based on a news story. If something happens like lets say the catholic church suddenly allowing the use of condoms for people to have sex out of wedlock, make a topic out of it and be one of the first to have a debate over it.You are going to have to pay more attention to the news but trust me it works.