

Ask YC: How to launch? - kashif

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.<p>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?
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shadowz
Invite 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>

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nudge
You 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.

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kashif
Yes 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?

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nudge
Startups 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.

