Create a startup without a solid idea it’s like building a startup backwards. But that’s exactly how our startup, Zupyak, unfolded – and it worked.
Our journey began when my co-founder, Qi Cao, was exploring various startup ideas. What he went on to build was a blogging platform designed for businesses, emphasizing industry-specific communities for content marketing, like a B2B version of Medium. The platform has organically grown its user base to over 300,000 worldwide, with 50,000 articles shared monthly. Observing this rapid growth, we identified a strong market trend. Due to increased paid marketing costs, finding new and cheaper ways to acquire customers through content has become a focus for startups and small businesses.
Growth only happens if you allow yourself to try and try again
Getting the attention of your target audience has never been more complicated, and it’s not getting any easier. The cost of Facebook advertising has skyrocketed 89% last year. While undeniably positive for us as consumers, the privacy trend is sending marketing costs skyrocketing.
The most important advantage over others in your industry is your ability to move quickly and adapt.
Marketing is usually the problem you face after you figure out what product to build. However, for us it was the other way around. Qi managed the content platform as a side project and after extensive testing of different marketing efforts, successfully created a development loop. Users who posted content also shared it, leading to a compounding effect on user growth.
Network effects are challenging, but the bottom line is that you’ll know what works once you try. Keep trying different marketing tactics until you strike gold and measure your results to see if they were successful. For channels like paid advertising, it’s relatively simple — you can track click costs and customer conversion rates. However, measurement becomes more difficult for other channels such as community outreach or forums. You can create unique tracking links for each test using tools like Bitly. This allows you to evaluate which messaging or community engagement strategy yields the best results.
