How to Get Confluence.VC Swag for Free

Five proven ways to rack up referrals and unlock more free stuff from us

Confluence.VC’s growth didn’t just come from good writing, spending a small fortune on paid media, or lenient inbox spam filters. Our powerful referral program has driven 15% of our subscribers.

While we love it whenever we get a new subscriber, our rewards program gives you a reason to love our new subs too.

That’s because when you hit certain referral milestones, we’ll send you our best digital downloads (like all of salary data, our VC resource library, and our tech stack picks), and once you pass a threshold, we’ll send you more Confluence swag, like a mug or even a sweatshirt.

Here are 5 proven strategies for racking up referrals and getting some of our best swag for free.

Before we start, you can find your unique referral link below (if you’re a subscriber). We also share this in every newsletter, so any time we mention "your link" or "your code," this is what we're talking about:

1. Spam the group chat (then follow up)

Music Video Omg GIF by Joel Corry

Anybody who has tried to make plans in the group chat knows … it can be a little bit of a challenge to get everyone on the same page.

Here’s a better technique that we’ve seen that works better (and feels more natural):

  1. Send an initial text to your group, but don’t include your referral link yet. Instead, send a screenshot of a funny headline or a well-written intro from us. Then let it hang. (Let us sell ourselves.)

  2. Once people have taken the bait and interacted with the screenshot (or even if they haven’t), hit them with a follow-up text saying “Btw, if you want to sign up for this newsletter, here’s the link.”

  3. But here’s where the magic really happens — text them individually. The individual follow-up text converts 10x more effectively than just sending you a link to the entire group.

Now just repeat that process in your group chats with your family, college friends, high school friends, work friends, and maybe even toss it in your fantasy football chat for just for kicks.

2. Snatch their phone

Niall Horan Grab GIF by The Voice

In our opinion, IRL > virtual (especially for referrals).

This method works especially well with the less technologically savvy but it can be used on everyone.

Step 1: Text the target your referral link

Step 2: Ask to see their phone

Step 3: Cut out the middleman and sign them up yourself

Step 4: Repeat steps 1-3 for all of your friends

3. Post on social media

Number 1 Influencer GIF by The Circle Netflix (US)

This method is all about choosing the right platform to post on.

We’ve spent some too much money running paid ads, and these are the platforms where we have found most of our readers:

  1. LinkedIn

  2. Instagram

  3. Twitter

  4. Facebook

  5. TikTok (untested)

But you can easily create referrals from any of these platforms. It really just depends on which one(s) you feel most comfortable sharing.

4. Company Slack channel

Slack GIF by Product Hunt

If you’re working remotely (even if you don’t at this point), chances are your runs on some type of collaboration software.

Whether you’re on Slack, Microsoft Teams, or something else, there’s a massive referral opportunity for those bold enough to post your referral link in a company-wide channel.

One of our friends has seen someone do this in the wild.

One of his coworkers dropped their referral link into the worldwide Slack channel for his company (with over 12,000 members) and now his entire wardrobe is dripped out.

Scared money don’t make money.

And if you get in trouble ... we never had this conversation.

5. DOMINATE Quora and Reddit

GIF by Team Coco

Wanna know a secret?

Quora and Reddit are both goldmines for creating new referrals.

One of our biggest referral generators has used this strategy to get new referrals nonstop:

  1. Identify a commonly asked question about venture capital and / or startups

  2. Answered it intelligently

  3. Add your referral link at the bottom of his answer

  4. Watch the referrals pour in as more eyeballs view the original post

This requires some writing chops but there is unlimited upside if you down it right.

Ready to start using some of these techniques to get more free stuff from us?

Get started with your unique referral link here: https://confluencevcweekly.beehiiv.com/subscribe?ref=PLACEHOLDER