Be simple. Make your site simple in design and easy to navigate. Google is probably the best example of how simplicity can make you succeed. In the online job space, the top three are all very much web1.0 designed to squeeze in as many ads as they can to distract you. You’d think that they would be happy with the billion dollars they make per year through job postings, but no, they have to put all those annoying ads next to your profile and search results to make even more. At uCareer, we will not irritate our members with exasperating ads.
Be focused. FaceBook started out with one single school, Harvard, and was only open to college students until late 2005. So, build your technology and test it in a very well defined, targeted group of people before rolling it out to the whole world.
Be viral. Provide what your customers want. Your early adopters will be your best sales team and they will reach out to their friends for you if you give them some incentives to do so. I’ve had very successful experiences at both Revver and Thoof; a little gift/prize goes a long way. On average it costs about $5 to $10 to acquire each new user for a new social site, so it is actually cheaper to give out a couple of iPods to motivate your early adopters to be your evangelists. Of course, they need your help, so build PHP/cURL address books or similar tools to make their life easier.
Build API. Viral alone is not going to take you very far. Building API is the best way to create affiliates and partnerships to reach out to the massive audience out there.
