Having 1000 users who have been paid , or otherwise incentivized, to sign up for a service means nothing really as they generally won't be the kinds of early users you need. Plus, this model won't really work if what someone is actually looking for is paying users.

A service to help entrepreneurs to market their web apps effectively so that they reach their target audience/users, so that they sign up organically would have a far better chance of success I think.

This was exactly what I was thinking. I suspect (I don't know of any data on this, but I'd love to see some) that there's a huge gap between users that sign up to a new service because they hear about it somewhere and think, "hey, that sounds neat, I want in first/I'd like to explore" and someone who's simply been paid to setup an account. cf. grassroots (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grassroots) v. astroturfing (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astroturfing)

thanks for the feedback!

I'd pay. I've tried going the Google Adwords route with one of my sites, and the return on investment was poor (definitely greater than $1 per sign-up), while waiting for organic traffic to come from Google despite all the back-links and SEO you can think is like waiting for your hair to go grey.

$1 per user (including them actually engaging with your site: adding a profile, posting some basic content etc.) sounds like good value to kick-start a new project.

I find a very easy way to get your first X users if you don't care much whether they are in your core target audience (but they should be in same ballpark) is to do a giveaway for blogs with a decent-sized subscriber base. Give away $20 Amazon gift card but to enter you must sign up for an account, and do something. $20 for 50-100 users is in the realm of possibility.

The great thing about this is that it does 2 things: gives you those first X users for social proof and it gives you a head start in SEO by building "organic" links (though one might argue they're paid technically)

It's not a bad idea, and I guess it depends on how much you would have to pay. Although I can imagine that the engagement of 'bought' users is less, there is also something called social proof. If your app attracts 1000 new users in the first day/week it must be worth it, right?

As far as ethics go, I don't object to these kind of things. It would be disturbing if you'd pay users for good reviews in the app store (which does happen), but paying for new users which will maybe leave a review in the app store, wether good or bad, is OK in my book.

Surely this is just another form of marketing, which people pour a lot of money in to, for good, well known reasons. So, I guess one would want some data on how well paying for users actually works, compared to $1000 worth of decent targeted advertising, or whatever.

it would be users from a list of self-described 'early adopters', the type of people who love the internet and startups and are eager to try something new.

Great idea, get apps out of the ghetto!