What do you need to know about startup directories?

You managed to launch your startup product, and you are proud of the work you have accomplished. What’s your next step? As an entrepreneur, you need to gain more awareness of what you do and what your startup is all about. To help you with that, there are startup platforms that can get the first load of traffic.

To build a relevant and robust linking platforms network, any entrepreneur doesn’t need to sweat about it much. The only thing you do need is a great business idea that you own, your profile on several platforms, and viola! Your first visitors are lurking on your website!

Purpose of Startup Directories

The primary purpose of any given startup platform is to show the startup’s solution to searchers’ specific needs. So you need to show what kind of value you are delivering and referring to while featuring your company in a startup listing platform.

Some other core purposes of startup directories include the following:

1. Gaining trust from your customers – The customers who may check you on these startup platforms will feel relief and confidence in your business since they will believe that your business is real and you’re no scam.
2. Link Building – As you’ll be registering not only on one startup platform, all of them will give you excellent link building.
3. Traffic Generation – By listing your business in many startup directories, it will ensure that your company website ranking will be going higher. Meanwhile, it will help to create networking and link-sharing processes among other websites.

Importance of getting your business on startup platforms

The critical value of publishing your business on startup platforms and being involved there is to get leads from a relevant target market. After that comes the drastic increase in its page ranking and a good SERP (Search Engine Results Pages) placement in Google.

Some listed startup platforms establish various drip campaigns throughout their social media channels, including different startup formations. Exactly that helps startups to create a stable startup brand image and gain more product awareness.

Other startup directories are actively providing email newsletters, blog publications, or simple startup/startup product reviews. That can significantly help young entrepreneurs during their business journey.

Is there any risk involved in startup directories?

“No doubt, that there can’t be only positive aspects of publishing your business in the best startup directories, right?” – such a question might suddenly popup in a founder’s head. Well, technically speaking, there are no negative aspects that can harm you when you submit your startup to these platforms.

The only potential danger is the directories with no peer-reviewing option and may not even be relevant to your startup. Exactly those startup directories will potentially hurt your SEO and bring an irrelevant target audience to your website. For that reason, we picked only the most valuable and trending startup platforms out there.

One thing to jot down is that don’t think of these platforms as your lifebelt. Remember, it is only a first step towards getting your customers attracted. It’s not going to solve all of your problems, nor it’s going to leave your startup with nothing. Think of it as your first marketing goal that shows you the way to the social media channel and other relevant marketing tools.

When should I utilize startup platforms?

We suggest any entrepreneur make his product go through at least a good of 1 to 2 months of core feature development. After that, you can start to appear on all startup directories actively.

For example, at JetRuby, we take two development stages and produce two core components required to complete an MVP development process. These two startup technology phases are the Product Development Strategy Session and the Design and Discovery Phase. The first one will produce a free ballpark estimate for your project strategy. At the same time, the second one will lay a solid foundation for your product core development phase. If you want to know more about each, check out how we can help you, and our team will assist your startup project!

However, you can submit your startup via various social media and some startup directories, even without your product release. But only if you can provide your product value through different snippets of your development process. Then, it won’t hurt at all, and you’ll be doing a good job warming up your market segment.

The other thing worth mentioning here is the accepted time. Yes, some platforms are very strict and specific towards their guidelines. They take time to process your information and verify you as a legitimate startup company. For that, it takes roughly one to two days, maybe a little more, to accept your filled profile. Others might get your account at once, so you’ll have no issue during the registration.

We recommend you plan out your startup platform deployment time. Probably a week before your first product iteration release or during one of the initial stages of startup development. Want to know what are the other ones? Read our article where we break down your startup development stage, bit by bit.

What data do I need to provide on startup platforms?

Lots of necessary aspects and points are developed and produced by every startup during its very first phases. Exactly most of its information is partially required to be filled in the majority of startup platforms. You may not necessarily use this information on all the platforms listed below. However, you still may require it in other things (for example, setting up your email newsletter or your website blog).

• Product name
• Company name
• Company Logo
• Main website
• Company Location
• Employees number
• Funding Raised
• 4-5 product screenshots
• Product video
• Year of foundation
• Name of the founder(s)
• Awards/Nominations
• Brief description
• Long description
• Tags/Hashtags
• Target Audience
• The business problem
• Unique value proposition
• Social media channels
• Pricing packages

Top 5 best startup directories to gain your first users

The listing’s primary focus is on the most active and popular platforms based around startups or new digital products. All of that was also backed up with the DR (Domain Rate) parameter. It is a grading scope that shows the likelihood of getting your website on the first page of Google. Exactly that can also play a massive role in your marketing.

Since it is a mixture of both the product reviews and the startup directories, both play a massive role in traffic generation. Simultaneously, the second one is used to gain more startup awareness and their business idea solution. The first ones are concerned with sharing the understanding and customer reviews on the startup digital products, which is still essential.

Without further ado, let’s review each of them in broad detail!

Crunchbase (UR – 85 & DR – 90)

Crunchbase is a leading startup directory, with over 50 million active registrations. Most of them are investors, market researchers, entrepreneurs, and startups. Typically, the platform has only four distinct ways of sourcing the data: machine learning, in-house data team, venture program, and the Crunchbase community.

G2 (UR – 83 & DR – 89)

G2 is one of the most reliable product reviewing websites out there. Here you can actively encourage your customers to leave reviews for better recognition. G2 profile reports allow your startup to show your product’s current performance. And if you upgrade your profile, you’ll access the sponsored content to reach more target customers.

Capterra (UR – 83 & DR – 89)

Another trustworthy product platform where you can just create a free listing and add customer reviews. Your profile will also be added to Capterra, GetApp, and Software Advice as they are part of the Gartner Digital Markets network.

You can even upgrade your account to the “Pay Per Click” listing for more visibility.

Finances Online (UR – 53 & DR – 84)

Finances Online is a comprehensive platform, which specifically concentrates on the SaaS and B2B products. All the reviews are analyzed and backed up with expert product reviews.

Just submit your startup profile to the platform, get some reviews, and you can already expect stable traffic to drive on your website slowly.

ProductHunt (UR – 85 & DR – 90)

Product Hunt is a free platform with thousands of users, where new startup digital products are discovered every day. Every user has the opportunity to test your product and leave their honest review to get your startup going.

Submit your startup product in any kind of state. It doesn’t matter if it’s in a beta or alpha state. As long as you have the guidelines of your product usage, it’ll work out. Furthermore, you can get highlighted in a daily email newsletter.

There are far more various communities out there. However, we took a glance at the most important ones. To have a more broad list of all startup platforms and get the maximum value out of it, download it right here!

Marketing step in startup directories

For creating stable inbound traffic, you can market other startup profiles via your social media. Thus, creating more potential clients and targeting the right audience.

Word of advice, though. Before you push the traffic from startup directories, make sure that your website has all that it needs to attract potential lead customers. Set up all the lead magnets and CTA buttons to fully capture your customer for your startup services.

Besides, once you register on the previously highlighted startup platforms, you can partner with other similar startups. Along with that, all directories serve as backlinks to your main website, which will boost your content higher in search engine ranks.

Conclusion

We hope that the presented best startup directories or startup platforms will assist every entrepreneur reading this article. By receiving more awareness and gaining more targeted traffic on your main website. You can find even more startup platforms to get the most leads possible, but don’t concentrate on them for too long. Spend your time wisely and allocate, prioritizing each task accordingly.

At JetRuby, we provide help and assistance to young startups. Especially when they are not entirely sure how the development process of their product should be done. To cope with and solve this issue, we have created a technology called Product Development Strategy Session. This meeting is oriented to assess your project scope and give you a ballpark estimate of your product development flow’s correct guidance. If you got interested, contact us today for a free session, and we’ll schedule a meeting for you tomorrow!

Otherwise, if your concern is about your marketing and where you should begin, we can assist you with the Design and Discovery Phase. This technology is concentrating on producing the project plan and testing your digital product’s marketing hypothesis. So if you think it will fit you more, drop us a message, and we’ll discuss your business idea together.