I think it's a tough problem to solve. In the beginning stages of your product, unless it goes viral, you'll be desperate and thankful for any users you can get, although you'd prefer 'normal' users (i'll call them "normies").
The problem with getting normies is that they're incredibly hard to reach. Outside of the tech sphere, few normies have heard of Quora, hacker news, digg, even reddit. Think what % have heard of any other number of less known startups. The answer is probably less than 1% for normies. They don't seek out new experiences online; they'll sign up only if your site goes super-viral, as facebook and twitter did. I think the problem is inherent in Normie behavior - they simply don't have much time to invest in or thought to give to new online startups.
The solution, I believe, is to target a niche community - either local or with a group of people who already socialize with each other. This is a purely an area of execution strategy and is quite fraught with difficulties, imo.
This is why people often tell founders to target a niche you understand.
No, the problem is that startups are filled with people who are arrogantly elitist and can't imagine anyone doing anything another way but the Silicon Valley way. If your startup is targeting biker moms, then the first question you should ask is how many biker moms have you talked to? Of those, how many know what you do and why you do it?
I'm not a marketer. I don't know the ins and outs of getting the word out. But even I know something as basic as explicitly targeting your demographic in ways they understand. America is accused of being an overly consumerist culture; and yet, somehow all these obsessively consumerist people don't even notice you exist. Why is that? Why is it their fault?
My conclusion from the post and the TED: launch to trendsetters in whatever demo you're hoping to target (always easier said than done).
