FireCrawl's Credit-for-Follows Onboarding Strategy

FireCrawl solved two problems at once. They needed followers and users needed credits. Most startups beg for follows. FireCrawl pays for them.

Firecrawl's Onboarding Offer

During onboarding, FireCrawl offers bonus credits. Join Discord, earn 50 credits. Follow on X, grab 75. Follow on LinkedIn, another 75.

Credits cost pennies. But the returns multiply.

Social proof creates momentum

When your account hits 10,000 followers, new visitors think other people trust this. This is herd mentality in action.

An account with 500 followers struggles to reach 1,000. An account with 10,000 easily hits 20,000. FireCrawl buys the initial push. Human psychology handles the rest.

People are always looking for ping values. Big influencers tend to get more bigger than the smaller ones.

Discord becomes your focus group

New users join Discord for credits. They stick around because they're using the product. That's when FireCrawl asks for feedback.

Users give it freely because it feels reciprocal. You gave credits, they give insights.

The economics work

Say FireCrawl offers 200 credits total. Based on their Growth plan, each credit costs about $0.00067, so that's just ~$0.13 per user. For $0.13, they get 3 social follows, one Discord member, and an engaged user. That's far cheaper than paid ads.

Unlike ads, these users are qualified. They signed up, completed onboarding, and took multiple actions.

Month one, FireCrawl spends its ~$333 monthly plan fee to get 1000s of Discord members and followers. Month 6, you have 10,000 followers and an active Discord. New users join because the community exists. The initial investment creates a flywheel.

Give users immediate value for helping you grow. Make the exchange explicit and immediate.

Top Tweets of the day

1/

Cheaper to buy accounts than to spend time setting them up properly.

2/

The more you learn, the more you realize that in the business world, lots of dark patterns make a lot of money.

3/

Free trial/free product is for VC funded companies. Exceptions exist (Tally) if it costs you nothing.

Ahrefs had a $99 per month plan for years. Only recently they went cheaper for the $29 per month plan when they exhausted the entire SEO market after 14 years. They launched with $49 and $79 and people kept paying so they raised it to $99 per month on the entry level plan.

Rabbit Holes

1. How Tiffany Fong Made $28,014.50 From X Payouts in 1 Month

2. The cold email that got a famous VC to reply to an unknown startup

3. How to Find Sources in an Unreliable World

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