1/ A lot of people ask me how Bleacher Report found our first writers when we were tiny and had no funding.

So here's a thread on all the things we tried, what worked best, and lessons on growing a community from scratch:

2/ When we first started B/R, all the articles were written by my co-founders, our friends, and me.

This led to some hilariously bad takes. Like this article where I panned the SF Giants for drafting future World Series MVP Madison Bumgarner.

https://t.co/QhPlPhAdY1
3/ When we were ready to start building our community, we started with word of mouth. We drafted an email pitching our concept. It went out to everyone we knew, asking them to share it with anyone who would be interested.

This got us maybe a few dozen signups.

From the email:
4/ With only a handful of members, we needed to make the community feel more active.

So we faked it til we made it.

Our team created multiple accounts and posted using different fake names. This created the sense of more activity and encouraged new members to join in.
5/ Later, I learned that the founders of Reddit did the same thing early on.

Sometimes the solution to the "chicken and the egg" problem of building community is to create the illusion of more chickens (or eggs.)

https://t.co/5SXsXw9VNf
6/ After tapping out our networks and WOM, we had to look elsewhere for growth.

So we unbundled the most dominant community platform of the mid-2000's.

Yep, Craigslist.
7/ We posted in Craigslist forums for big sports cities promoting B/R as a place for fans to write about their teams.

Posting on CL was free. Our success rate improved as we iterated on copy, cadence, and communication tactics.

Craigslist netted us 100's of our first users.
8/ Taking the lessons learned from CL, we decided to bundle up the still nascent sports blogosphere.

Using Google, blogrolls and Technorati, we manually built a database of every active sports blog we could find. Then we emailed bloggers and pitched them on joining B/R.
9/ Blogger outreach started with individual emails until we learned what worked best. Then we automated the process while still making it feel personal.

Recruiting bloggers was hit or miss. Some preferred blogging solo. But a few hundred gave it a shot.

We kept growing.
10/ In the early days, every new user got white glove onboarding. One of our co-founders served as head of community and personally introduced each new member to B/R.

We got to know our early users incredibly well. Sometimes too well.
11/ Finally, with momentum and confidence from Craigslist and blogger recruiting, we decided to try paid marketing.

So we took a flier (literally) on a new social network for college students that was still figuring out their business model:

Facebook
12/ Facebook had just introduced "Facebook Flyers", their first ad product. They were all text ads on the sidebar of the home page, targeted first by college and (soon after) interest.

And since FB was new, they were super cheap.
13/ We targeted FB Flyers to big sports schools, using the messaging and onboarding tactics we had refined in our earlier efforts.

The results were huge. Thousands of new signups. But like most paid marketing, quality was lower.

Still, paid social helped us really scale.
14/ Biggest lessons?

1. You are your first user.
2. Look where your users already are. Bundle. Unbundle. Test new channels.
3. Be shameless about growth. If it works, it works. No judgement.
4. Treat your early users like celebrities. They will repay you 1,000x.
15/ I adapted this thread from an essay I recently wrote on this topic.

For more insights, read it here:

https://t.co/S0GbqOVsds
16/ Want more like this? Follow me and subscribe to me weekly newsletter.

I write about building media companies, growing audiences, and the mindset and creative processes employed by prolific makers.

https://t.co/MiJbvR931N

More from Culture

I just finished Eric Adler's The Battle of the Classics, and wanted to say something about Joel Christiansen's review linked below. I am not sure what motivates the review (I speculate a bit below), but it gives a very misleading impression of the book. 1/x


The meat of the criticism is that the history Adler gives is insufficiently critical. Adler describes a few figures who had a great influence on how the modern US university was formed. It's certainly critical: it focuses on the social Darwinism of these figures. 2/x

Other insinuations and suggestions in the review seem wildly off the mark, distorted, or inappropriate-- for example, that the book is clickbaity (it is scholarly) or conservative (hardly) or connected to the events at the Capitol (give me a break). 3/x

The core question: in what sense is classics inherently racist? Classics is old. On Adler's account, it begins in ancient Rome and is revived in the Renaissance. Slavery (Christiansen's primary concern) is also very old. Let's say classics is an education for slaveowners. 4/x

It's worth remembering that literacy itself is elite throughout most of this history. Literacy is, then, also the education of slaveowners. We can honor oral and musical traditions without denying that literacy is, generally, good. 5/x

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Rig Ved 1.36.7

To do a Namaskaar or bow before someone means that you are humble or without pride and ego. This means that we politely bow before you since you are better than me. Pranipaat(प्राणीपात) also means the same that we respect you without any vanity.

1/9


Surrendering False pride is Namaskaar. Even in devotion or bhakti we say the same thing. We want to convey to Ishwar that we have nothing to offer but we leave all our pride and offer you ourselves without any pride in our body. You destroy all our evil karma.

2/9

We bow before you so that you assimilate us and make us that capable. Destruction of our evils and surrender is Namaskaar. Therefore we pray same thing before and after any big rituals.

3/9

तं घे॑मि॒त्था न॑म॒स्विन॒ उप॑ स्व॒राज॑मासते ।
होत्रा॑भिर॒ग्निं मनु॑षः॒ समिं॑धते तिति॒र्वांसो॒ अति॒ स्रिधः॑॥

Translation :

नमस्विनः - To bow.

स्वराजम् - Self illuminating.

तम् - His.

घ ईम् - Yours.

इत्था - This way.

उप - Upaasana.

आसते - To do.

स्त्रिधः - For enemies.

4/9

अति तितिर्वांसः - To defeat fast.

मनुषः - Yajman.

होत्राभिः - In seven numbers.

अग्निम् - Agnidev.

समिन्धते - Illuminated on all sides.

Explanation : Yajmans bow(do Namaskaar) before self illuminating Agnidev by making the offerings of Havi.

5/9