4 ms·
Ask YC: How to launch?
We are going to launch a bug tracking tool shortly. The product isn't completely ready but some of the core features are usable. We want to do a limited release so that the product can benefit from some customer interaction before we promote it aggressively.
Do you think that a invites-only beta is a good idea for such a product? Is there some other way of doing a selective/limited release without over exposing the product before its ready?
- nudge 17y agoYou can limit the number of signups without making it invite-only. You just make it first-come-first-served, and accept no more than X signups. I'm assuming you've done a closed trial first, among yourselves (using it to develop itself, I hope!) and any dev friends you can gather. You definitely want to go through this stage before you open it up.
- kashif 17y agoYes we should be doing a closed trial beginning early next month. We also use everything we develop. We intend to keep the product free for open-source and startup with 3 users or less. Do you think its a good idea allow signups for startups only - as a way of limiting signups?
- nudge 17y agoStartups as opposed to open source? I suppose that would cut down on the users, but how would you police it? To be honest I think that would just annoy people, as well as being a lot of work for you. If you really want to limit signups, I would just allow only X signups, or Y signups per day. That way you're being honest with your users: the message is "We're in trial mode, so we're only taking a few users now". People will understand that I think.
- shadowz 17y agoInvite beta is definitely the way to go. We are also launching an unrelated web app in a few months and found that invites-only beta is great way to get people talking about your app. Read this as well: http://gettingreal.37signals.com/ch13_Hollywood_Launch.php http://gettingreal.37signals.com/ch13_Hollywood_Launch.php