

How to get 45,000 pre-launch signups in your 1st 20 days - betashop

This is what we've done at Fab.com since we put up a pre-launch splash-page on March 9th.<p>1.  Create scarcity.  Require future members to request an invite.<p>2.  Create levels of priority access.  The more friends who join, the higher level of attainment. See for yourself at http://fab.com/priority-access.<p>3.  Provide easy ways for users to share on Facebook, Twitter, email contacts, etc.<p>4.  Target influencers on Facebook.  We took out a very small ad buy on Facebook targeted to less than 100,000 people who we thought would be big influencers.  They have driven the viral growth.<p>We're now adding 4k users per day.  Do a Twitter search for Fab.com and see for yourself the activity.<p>Oh, and it helps to be in a sexy category that a lot of people are interested, where there is no current leading online player (in our case online design sales).
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revorad
5\. Regular self-congratulatory HN posts :-)

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wmboy
"Create levels of priority access. The more friends who join, the higher level
of attainment. See for yourself at <http://fab.com/priority-access>.

Good idea. I guess if one was planning on launching a different kind of
business (e.g. a SaaS) you could award people who refer X number of friends
with a free lifetime account...it won't cost you anything except for a few
missed sales.

Just don't go down the "Win a free iPad" route, as that'll bring in a whole
lot of free riders that have no interest in your product and are only in it
for the chance to win.

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happybuy
Would be interesting to know exactly how much $ was spent on the "very small
ad buy" and any other paid advertising that occurred.

Along with the other commenter who noted that a previous site (with existing
membership) already existed on the domain it's hard to determine if these
techniques or other factors were at play here.

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olegious
It would be great if I could import addresses from gmail (or other services)
instead of typing emails one by one...

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olegious
oh, nm, it is under "more invite options" ;)

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brianbreslin
It probably also helps that you had a pre-existing social network at the same
site right?

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betashop
Actually, that's turned out to be little help. Less than 4k of our new subs
are former members so far.

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bmelton
You're only at approximately 11 times that now, so I'd venture to guess that
it's a bigger deal than you're crediting it.

Most people would kill to have a ~4,000 startup base to spread the word.

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staunch
How much was the domain?

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wmboy
Definitely keen to know this! Unowned 3 letter domains are long extinct...

