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So here’s a suggestion to sites still hiding behind the beta wall: Throw open the gates. Get your own Fail Whale ready. And please, let me know when I can link
by chops 18y ago
So here’s a suggestion to sites still hiding behind the beta wall: Throw open the gates. Get your own Fail Whale ready. And please, let me know when I can link not to your invite-only beta program, but to your cool, slightly buggy site available to everyone - now.
This is pretty much exactly what I did when I was starting my website. Instead of locking everything down, as soon as I had a reasonable working beta, I opened it up for free to anyone that happened along and wanted to sign up. Because I didn't advertise, most of those early free signups were either referrals, or random happenstance.
Personally, I think as soon as you've got a reasonable working beta, you might as well open it up and let people try it out.
- josefresco 18y agoGenerally I agree for small startups, but some of these well funded startups aren't merely thinking about 'surviving', they have their eyes set on 'global domination' and therefore, a mistimed launch could spell disaster from a PR standpoint or could tip off another well funded competitor before they are ready to compete.
- cdr 18y agoDo those type of startups exist? Certainly there are people that think a mistimed launch or tipping off competitors would be a disaster for their site, but they're probably wrong.
- gaius 18y agoCuil is a particularly good example.
- knightinblue 18y agoCuil had more problems than just 'timing' though. They were trying to be a google killer. That requires a fundamental paradigm shift which their product simply wasn't offering. They could have timed their launch to the precise nanosecond. It still wouldn't have helped.