

Ask HN: What percentage of pre-launch/beta users register on full launch? - sagacity

I think it can be safely assumed that not all people who pre-register would respond when a full launch is announced.<p>Can those with relevant experience share the percentages?<p>Also, I think it would be interesting to discuss the possible causes of drop-outs and various factors affecting this. e.g. the longer the period between pre-reg and launch, the higher the percentage of drop-outs; the more useful/valuable the service, the lower the percentage of drop-outs etc.<p>Please share what you can.
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dmlevi
Although I dont have a percentage for you, I think your right. With a new
launch, you always want to stay conservative with your evaluation. It also
depends on what you have launched. Is your product something thats going to
generate a buzz? Does the product pre-launch actually work? Regardless, If
your creating an evaluation, I would stay on the conservative side.

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michael_dorfman
How long is a piece of string?

The retention rate of beta users is going to vary on such a large number of
factors (some of which you mention) as to render comparison futile.

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sagacity
I'd both - agree and disagree with you. :-)

Yes, I guess comparing one case with another would be more or less futile.

However, I do believe some kind of useful/meaningful/actionable intelligence
could still be derived from case studies and statistics - don't you think so?

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michael_dorfman
There's a big difference between a case study and statistics.

A case study is just one big, detailed anecdote.

You can learn from it to the degree that your situation matches the situation
described-- but you still don't know if the factors that you are matching on
are actually the relevant factors or not in terms of the outcome.

Statistics would be wonderful, if there were a way to normalize for all of the
unknown factors. Which there isn't, so they aren't.

