The challenge of getting early adopters

Yesterday, I had a chat with my neighbor and shared with him our current challenge - building a community of early adopters who use the site. This is a well documented and researched problem. It is especially challenging if your project is noble. People are skeptical of anyone doing good, because the first thing they want to know - why? The want to know - what's the catch. And if there is no catch they become even more suspicious and assume the worst.

I think I have shared the majamba concept with over 1,000 acquaintances, friends and family members and after 50 days after launch only 70 have registered and not many people are using the site. Although the site has gotten a lot of traffic. The ranking has gone from 20,000,000 to 640,000. I know there are many other factors that have contributed to low registration and limited usage - no advertising, abstract concept, no big companies advertising on the site, no celebrities spreading the word, no major rewards etc. It's a classic chicken and egg situation - people will use it when there are many companies posting interesting missions and jobs. And companies will only post missions if there are many members.

So my neighbor suggested I look at this video on YouTube that really shows the challenge of getting early adopters:

1. A guy takes the risk of starting something good - dancing, expressing his joy. He is not a pro and there is nothing polished about him. Note that no one even notices him in the beginning.

2. The people who are sitting close to him (when they do notice him) almost look squeamish and half embarrassed (that will be most of my friends and relatives)

3. Then one person joins and then another one and soon its a big crowd. Note the profile of the early adopter. He is not from the inner circle.

4. And the party gets started!

Wow! Amazing!