bharath

I am trying to enter my pre-launch startup in a b-school business plan competition. One of the things I am trying to do is project new user growth based on referral rates. Dropbox would be an "extreme" example of a wildly successful referral system. What does the median look like in the referral marketing world? Specifically, what percentage of users might be interesting in referrals and how many new users do they bring in on average?

We are a seed stage startup (havent raised money) in the bootstrapping phase. So far, we have relied exclusively on writing to/contacting individual members of the target community to get them on board our website. Now we feel like we have enough content/activity to take our marketing efforts to the next level and are thinking in terms of recruiting a team of evangelists. These people will be well known members of the target community who will generate "buzz" by blogging about us, pro-actively help us acquire users and try to contribute towards greater levels of activity on our website.

A real world comparison would be the paid reviewers that Yelp used. The emphasis on evangelists draws from the fact that the target market is India where viral marketing has not been a factor in Web success stories so far.

What would be the way(s) to compensate these guys? Equity is the most obvious choice. If so how much? Are there other ways?

Given YC's precedence of funding only US based startups, how do you feel about funding a startup targeted at the Indian market? The founders will be in the Bay Area through the end of March to work with the YC team and relocate to India shortly thereafter.

<p>From your latest essay:<p>"Sometimes it literally is software, like Hacker News and our application rating system."<p>This is the 1st time I've heard about you guys using some kind of automated application rating system. Would you be willing to discuss how it works?