There are some contemporary piracy services that run ads—for marketing and, well, advertising purposes. This ranges from PPC to social media campaigns. I opted not to, mostly because I didn’t think I could do it tastefully, and because I’d probably attract users who wouldn’t be great customers.
Instead, my marketing relied entirely on word-of-mouth—which meant building tremendous trust with my users, plus a single growth hack that I’ll describe later on this page.
This is all fairly standard startup knowledge—I’ve worked with more than a handful of Y Combinator companies and I could apply this to all of them—but it’s interesting to see how many parallels existed between what I built and what a “real” startup looks like.
I learned a lot about running a business while operating HeheS…
There are some contemporary piracy services that run ads—for marketing and, well, advertising purposes. This ranges from PPC to social media campaigns. I opted not to, mostly because I didn’t think I could do it tastefully, and because I’d probably attract users who wouldn’t be great customers.
Instead, my marketing relied entirely on word-of-mouth—which meant building tremendous trust with my users, plus a single growth hack that I’ll describe later on this page.
This is all fairly standard startup knowledge—I’ve worked with more than a handful of Y Combinator companies and I could apply this to all of them—but it’s interesting to see how many parallels existed between what I built and what a “real” startup looks like.
I learned a lot about running a business while operating HeheStreams: customer experience, retention, product design, and the weird parallels between illegal streaming and your typical B2C.
Think of this as a founder postmortem with felony-level customer support.
Lessons from Growing a B2C
noreply@is absolutely stupid.
I did everything I could to be visible to customers and encouraged them to talk to me any time. That helped build trust in a product sitting in a sea of shady, fly-by-night operations. I ended every email with some variation of “If you need anything, just reply :)”.
Get customers started.
After a user subscribed, I sent a sequence of onboarding emails to make sure they were actually using the site: After three days, I’d check whether they’d watched anything and ask if they needed help; after they watched n minutes, I’d send an NPS-style survey (“1–10, how likely are you to recommend...”) and if they gave a 9 or 10, I’d invite them to leave a review; if they didn’t watch anything within two weeks, I offered a refund and suggestions on where else to watch.
- Send fun emails.
My copywriting was tongue-in-cheek and self-deprecating. It was all me, no bullshit. I treated every message—even transactional emails—as an opportunity to build trust. Users regularly told me they actually enjoyed reading my emails, which is not a thing that should happen.
- Be honest about service availability.
If things went sideways, I owned it. No hiding behind “maintenance windows.”
- A customer with a bad taste in their mouth is bad.
If someone used their entire subscription and then asked for a refund, I’d still honor it—no questions asked. My users were shockingly honest, and I rarely dealt with chargebacks. My abuse detector barely had to do anything over 66 months.
- It’s okay to be direct about churn.
I’d send messages like, “Hey, I saw you didn’t renew. Did you find a good place to watch? Anything I could’ve done better?” People usually responded—nicely, even.
- Recommend your competitors if you have to.
If a user wasn’t a good fit, I happily pointed them toward alternatives. It built credibility, even if it lost me a sale.
- You don’t need to target everyone.
I intentionally priced higher than competitors. That filtered in customers who were more tech-savvy and saw HeheStreams as an “investment in their leisure time,” not a “cost.”
- Be great at one thing, and half-assed at nothing.
I never added generic IPTV or random channels. I focused purely on sports. That probably left money on the table, but it kept quality high.
- Say no.
Say no a lot. Customers can be stupid.
The growth hack
My proudest growth hack involved Reddit’s API. I filtered posts mentioning phrases like “NBA League Pass,” “blackouts,” or “where to” on team-specific subreddits. Then I gave my users lists of those posts and encouraged them to comment—transparently—about why they liked HeheStreams, including their referral link.
Each referrer got a $10 credit per subscriber, and new subscribers got $10 off their next month. It worked well.
Lessons still work
I’ve applied these same principles to a Mexican ecotourism business with great success. Some of them will never scale to hundreds of thousands of customers (you can’t automate personality or hire for charm), but they work beautifully for small, honest teams. That’s enough for me.
Why word-of-mouth beats ads (especially when you can’t run ads)
I believe that trust mechanics are reflections of self. If they’re artificial, people will see right through them.
The takeaway
Wouldn’t trade the lessons; would strongly advise against the exit strategy. “Acquired” by Alliance for Creativity/Motion Picture Association.