> (I learned this phrase a long time ago from a friend who used to sell cars!). When your product goes viral, yes, you do a big spike in users. But what you’re really getting is an Invasion of Looky-Loos, low quality users who come in, check things out, but don’t stick.
I find it strange that we generally frown upon the "Buy something or get out" mentality in brick-and-mortar stores, yet we seem to be cheering on this mentality if it's an online service. It seems like castigating your potential customers because they didn't give you money immediately or give you as much money as you wanted is a shitty business practice.
It's not "castigating" or criticising potential users. It's advising founders not to waste resources attracting large numbers of visitors who are unlikely to be potential users, and instead do the hard work to attract and retain users who will actually value your product.
I made this mistake multiple times back in early 2010s "virality hacking" days, and man it was a painful and costly learning experience.
I don't read it that way. The hypothetical author here didn't "waste" any resources to make a viral video--it happened by chance. He got an influx of users from someone else's viral video, but he decided those people are "shitty" users because they didn't stick around and buy his product.
That doesn't strike me as maximizing long-term users; that strikes me as getting free publicity and being pissed off that it didn't attract the kind of customers you wanted.
It makes sense. Physical stores and coffee shops have limited space. If your coffee shop fills up with people sitting around for hours while sipping a single coffee, you lose out on sales to people walking by who can’t find a place to sit.
If your online site or store gets a spike in traffic, the other customers shouldn’t be impacted (assuming you didn’t do something like self-hosting on an under provisioned server). The people can come and go without buying anything and not block any potential sales.
However, all traffic drives more exposure. They may not buy something today, but they may remember it and mention it to a friend next week or a family remember at the next holiday gathering. The cost of traffic is nearly zero in this era, so any exposure that has a non-zero chance of spreading your brand name is good.
> I find it strange that we generally frown upon the "Buy something or get out" mentality in brick-and-mortar stores
Loitering spends up resources used by other paying customers. Moreover, if you go into a brick-and-mortar store intending to make a purchase but the store is full of people walking around, talking, and not really purchasing anything, then all of those people are getting in the way. At best they're slowing down your paying customers who have to navigate around them. They're probably also antagonizing your paying customers with conversations about nothingburgers instead of conversations about the products. It's also extremely possible that they're causing fire/emergency hazards (eg, too many people, too constricted space).
> It seems like castigating your potential customers because they didn't give you money immediately or give you as much money as you wanted is a shitty business practice.
I completely agree. In the age of "everything online is free", it's especially shitty to demand people to pay up without giving them opportunity to view and exercise the product.
I find it strange that we generally frown upon the "Buy something or get out" mentality in brick-and-mortar stores, yet we seem to be cheering on this mentality if it's an online service. It seems like castigating your potential customers because they didn't give you money immediately or give you as much money as you wanted is a shitty business practice.