
The Lost Art of the Soft Launch - antr
http://wadefoster.net/post/70145296769/the-lost-art-of-the-soft-launch
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bsirkia
A lot the sentiments here echo a post from Eric Ries titled: "Lessons Learned:
Don't Launch": [http://www.startuplessonslearned.com/2009/03/dont-
launch.htm...](http://www.startuplessonslearned.com/2009/03/dont-launch.html)

In general, I think the lesson is that you should launch, refine your offering
and target customer, and then do a big marketing launch.

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raverbashing
Even restaurants do soft launches.

It's important, even as a "smoke test" (albeit in a bigger scale)

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exo_duz
I agree. This is a good period to be able to reflect and improve on services,
coding and fix bugs.

Doing a soft launch could start your way to getting power users whose input
and feedback is valuable to improve the website in the future.

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alabut
Slow rolling a launch reminds me of how the Facebook mafia tends to roll out
their companies in measured and targeted ways, rather than trying to go viral
all at once.

[http://techcrunch.com/2011/02/13/inside-the-dna-of-the-
faceb...](http://techcrunch.com/2011/02/13/inside-the-dna-of-the-facebook-
mafia/)

(scroll down to "controlled pacing")

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msrpotus
I'm actually working on a new product (for a fairly small B2B niche) and
planning to do a soft launch to work out all the kinks before I publicize it
more widely. I'm thinking that'll allow me to work out any issues before I
risk my reputation with people who might dismiss the product out of hand if
they run into major issues. If you have more experience with it, does that
make sense or should I forgo that first step?

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tlack
My gut feeling is that if you have a group of committed potential customers --
i.e., people who trust you and are already interested in what you're building
-- then it will probably work. But I'd be wary before you try to get people
you barely know to do your beta testing for you unless your product is
extremely sexy. The buy-in has to be there before someone will commit to
helping you improve a broken product.

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arpit
Back when I did a lot more web stuff, soft launches were the default way we
released features. But I wonder if soft launches are possible or even
desirable in the mobile apps world where a lot of press is devoted to "new"
(app store sections and even blogs with a recurring "new this week" sections).

Do any mobile startups do soft launches?

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simonholroyd
You're right it's more difficult to pull off a soft launch on mobile if you're
also aiming for a feature in the App Store (Apple seems to favor new-ness when
selecting apps for features). I've heard of iOS apps launching into a subset
of the regional app stores as a way to soft launch (ie. excluding the US store
and thus preventing Apple from featuring there before the developer is ready).

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MaxGabriel
This is exactly what Supercell, maker of Clash of Clans (currently ranked 81
in the App Store), is doing with its new game Boom Beach, which is Canada only

