{"id":9746,"date":"2014-11-03T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2014-11-03T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wework.com\/creator\/?p=9746"},"modified":"2020-03-30T18:59:35","modified_gmt":"2020-03-30T22:59:35","slug":"roomi-advanced-business-140-characters-less","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wework.com\/ideas\/community-stories\/roomi-advanced-business-140-characters-less","title":{"rendered":"How Roomi advanced their business in 140 characters or less"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you ask entrepreneur Ajay Yadav about any given stage in developing his app, chances are, he\u2019ll mention Twitter as an important tool to his business. He\u2019s used it to do everything from recruiting users to meeting his mentors, and he thinks you should, too.<\/p>\n

Yadav is a New York City-based India native and founder and CEO of Roomi<\/a>, an app that allows you to scope out your potential future roommates on social media before you respond to their home postings. So of course, he believes getting to know someone is a must before making any big step in life, and he sees social media as an avenue to get there.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy would anyone help you if they don\u2019t know you?\u201d says Yadav. \u201cThe only way I could do that was on Twitter. You have to become part of the conversation.\u201d<\/p>\n

After a year and a half of meetings with users, mentors, and investors, Yadav has the process down to a science. He laid out three steps \u2013 finding the right mentors, early user acquisition and fundraising \u2013 that heavily leveraged social mediums like Twitter.<\/p>\n

Yadav started by making a list of people he admired, either from the books, articles or companies, and followed them on Twitter. Whenever they tweeted, he favorited, replied to them with questions or compliments, or engaged them in a discussion.<\/p>\n

When he got favorites, replies and retweets, he knew he was making progress. The process of being recognized, or being \u201cthat same guy,\u201d as Yadav called it, took him between one to seven months.<\/p>\n

But Yadav says it paid off \u2013 getting him his first investors, advisers, and mentors.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just packed my bags and went to San Francisco for a month, just to meet people,\u201d says Yadav. \u201cI had no idea what I was going to do there. So I tweeted that I had dream that the only thing I wanted to do was to meet [entrepreneur] Andrew Chen<\/a>. Within two minutes I got a message from him. Best meeting ever.\u201d<\/p>\n

By tweeting at his idols, Yadav scheduled almost daily meetings to get feedback on his app.\u00a0 When he started finding his first few users for testing, he again turned to Twitter, gaining 3,000 users and 20 meetings with real estate brokers by searching terms like \u201cmoving to New York.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still today, he estimates that between five and 10 percent of his users find Roomi through Twitter.<\/p>\n

Again, Yadav proactively kept clear and constant communication with his early users. Sometimes when the app didn\u2019t have enough postings, Yadav contacted them personally.<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryday I would look on Craigslist, and compile a personalized list for each user,\u201d says Yadav.. \u201cI said, \u2018Let me know what you\u2019re looking for I\u2019ll help you try to find it.\u2019 It made their life easier.\u201d He even created a Tumblr blog of the listings on Roomi so he could tweet the link to potential users that had questions about what was available on the app.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s something that\u2019s true for every business,\u201d Yadav said. \u201cYou have to find your customer base, find where they are and follow them there. For us, it was Craigslist.\u201d=<\/p>\n

When Roomi started looki fundraising, Yadav again tried to establish himself as a familiar face through constant communication.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhenever I hear \u201cno\u201d [from an investor], I add them to a list of people I heard \u201cno\u201ds from,\u201d says Yadav.<\/p>\n

Yadav would keep them in the loop by sending them emails every few months to update them on Roomi\u2019s progress. He did catch their attention and eventually showed them why they should care.<\/p>\n

Building strong relationships goes back to a spiritual belief for Yadav, who finds that running a solo company is only possible if you really believe in people, and take the time to build their trust.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have to be personal, tell your story. I don\u2019t really shy away from people,\u201d says Yadav. \u201cI learned a powerful thing, and that is, if you don\u2019t approach people, you\u2019ll never know.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you ask entrepreneur Ajay Yadav about any given stage in developing his app, chances are, he\u2019ll mention Twitter as an important tool to his business. He\u2019s used it to do everything from recruiting users to meeting his mentors, and he thinks you should, too. Yadav is a New York City-based India native and founder […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1334,"featured_media":9749,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[43903],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9746","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community-stories"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nHow Roomi advanced their business in 140 characters or less<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"If you ask entrepreneur Ajay Yadav about any given stage in developing his app, chances are, he\u2019ll mention Twitter as an important tool to his business.\u2026\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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