Re:Inside the Y Combinator office
by jessedhillon on Wednesday March 02, 2011 @02:38AM
(#2278786)
He's not losing anything, except a few minutes' time to sign up, so how is he being made a fool? For being excited enough about their product to want to be invited to use it? There's nothing foolish in that, especially if they have an interesting product.
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If you don't find the product interesting I'll refund all your money!
He is being used as a tool to do their marketing for free.
I don't know about you, but I find it extremely tacky to use friendships to sell stuff (and he is selling your time and attention to that company for an invite) even if it doesn't involve money directly.
And that causes me to lower my opinion of both him and (especially) the company. Use sleazily marketing => you are a sleazy company.
But hey thats apparently just me.
'[...] I find it extremely tacky to use friendships to sell stuff '
Why? Most of the good products I hear about, I hear through friends. Much better than "traditional" advertising.
I'm guessing if the product itself wasn't any good, no one would bother "playing the game". The game is only there to encourage people even more.
Re:Inside the Y Combinator office
by jessedhillon on Wednesday March 02, 2011 @06:15PM
(#2281876)
Personally, I find cold-calling people out of the blue and trying to pitch them a product when you only have minimal indications of interest from them (if any) to be the sleaziest way to sell a product.