Crowded’s Creative User Acquisition: Trading LinkedIn Endorsements for Product Feedback

When your target market consists of college students eager to build their professional profiles, sometimes the best currency isn’t money – it’s opportunity. In a recent episode of Category Visionaries, Daniel Grunstein shared how Crowded turned this insight into an innovative user acquisition strategy.

Understanding the User’s Currency

Traditional user acquisition might focus on discounts or feature access, but Crowded recognized different motivations in their college market. “In the early days, we used to do things like endorse them on LinkedIn or offer them an unpaid internship, which was really just giving us product feedback. And they love that because obviously college students want experience,” Daniel explains.

This approach wasn’t just clever – it was perfectly aligned with their users’ needs. College treasurers wanted both to manage their organizations’ finances and build their professional credentials. Crowded found a way to serve both goals simultaneously.

Creating the Perfect Testing Ground

The strategy created ideal conditions for product development. As Daniel notes, “It was really easy to get them to use products that were half baked and to tell me what works and what doesn’t, because they find that cool and exciting, whereas users that are adults would just find that annoying.”

This willingness to engage with early versions of the product proved invaluable. Their first implementation was far from perfect – Daniel reveals that “The database wasn’t actually registering the payments. So what I would do is I would get them on a call and I would literally go in and they would write, my dues for this semester is a grand, two grand, whatever it is. And I would actually write it on a piece of paper and then enter it in the database after.”

Leveraging Natural Market Dynamics

The college market had another advantage: built-in cycles of opportunity. Daniel explains, “The cool thing with college groups is the treasurer changes every year. I’ve got this guy. He’s new, he’s excited.” This regular turnover of decision-makers created consistent opportunities for new relationships and feedback.

Rather than seeing this turnover as a challenge, Crowded turned it into an advantage. Each new treasurer was an opportunity to refine their product and expand their network of users.

Building on Early Success

This early strategy laid the groundwork for broader market penetration. Today, Daniel notes, “In the college space… maybe ten to 15% would definitely have heard of us. Maybe about 1% would be using us, or a bit less than that.” While these numbers might seem modest, they represent significant traction in a fragmented market.

The insights gained from these early users shaped Crowded’s evolution into a comprehensive platform. As Daniel describes it, “We take banking and we make it like a completely tailored experience to the end user and their application or use case. So it doesn’t look like any other digital bank.”

Key Lessons for Founders

Crowded’s creative user acquisition strategy offers several valuable insights:

1. Understand what your users truly value (beyond your product)
2. Create win-win situations that serve both immediate and long-term needs
3. Turn market characteristics that might seem challenging into advantages
4. Use early user relationships to build product understanding
5. Look for opportunities to provide value beyond your core offering

Impact on Current Strategy

This early approach to user acquisition continues to influence Crowded’s growth strategy. They’ve evolved from individual LinkedIn endorsements to more scalable approaches, but the core principle remains: understand what your market values and find creative ways to provide it.

For founders, particularly those targeting student or early-career professionals, Crowded’s story highlights the importance of thinking beyond traditional user acquisition methods. Sometimes the most effective growth strategies come from deeply understanding your users’ aspirations and finding ways to help them achieve their goals while building your product.

The approach might look different for every startup, but the principle is universal: the best user acquisition strategies often leverage unique characteristics of your target market in ways your competitors haven’t considered.