[gizmo]

Launching early is certainly a good thing. Launching a product that is only a proof of concept so people can really see what you're trying to do is also a good idea. But taking people's money under the banner "WE'RE A COMMUNITY OF ENTREPRENEURS THAT HELP EACH OTHER." when no such community exists seems borderline dishonest.

When 5.5% of your initial customers feel scammed and are are upset about being deceived it may be an "acceptable loss" from a business perspective, but I certainly don't think that's a "great result". 5.5% is a lot. For comparison, an eBay vendor with that many unhappy customers wouldn't last long.

Bootstrapping communities is notoriously difficult, and I'm well aware that the use of "community building hacks" are more the norm rather than exception, but I'm still not going to applaud this behavior.

[BrechtVds]

"taking people's money under the banner ..."

He didn't actually charge people before the product was finished and they were able to opt-out after they knew what happened. Would have been a whole different story if the cards had actually been charged.

[tixocloud]

While the author did not charge the credit cards, he did not communicate to his site visitors about the situation either. It was only after the fact once they essentially gave out their information did he reveal the truth. Sure, you can argue that he did not charge for those that wanted to opt out. But from the get go, his visitors were not provided with the correct information to make an informed decision.

[BrechtVds]

Communicating about it would defeat the entire purpose of the idea.

The way he did it allowed him to validate the idea in the exact same situation he would end up after building it, so it's a great way to take the (huge!) risk out of building a product.

Personally I wouldn't mind as a customer as you did know all the facts before you were actually spending the money.

[chris_wot]

Ethically, you must be honest and upfront with your customers. If your experiment involves misleading the, in any way, then ditch the experiment.

I sure as hell wouldn't want to be the unknowing recipient of his "experiment".

[BrechtVds]

It's hard to experiment if everyone knows what's going on.

If you didn't like the experiment you had the possibility to opt-out and never become a customer of him again, without having to pay a single dime.

[chris_wot]

I don't care. It's not my role as a customer to make it easy for you to experiment. You either tell me the truth, front up, or you don't try to make the sale.

[jamesk_au]

"He didn't actually charge people before the product was finished and they were able to opt-out after they knew what happened. Would have been a whole different story if the cards had actually been charged."

He does note that he had to "authorize a $0 transaction" in order to store the details for each credit card.

But leaving that aside, not only was his conduct misleading, query whether legally enforceable contracts were entered into as soon as mutual promises were exchanged (promise to pay made by proffering means of payment in exchange for promise to deliver product).

If that is the proper analysis, a distinction based on whether the credit cards were ultimately charged does no more than draw the line between civil and criminal liability.

He should be glad that no one actually relied on what he said. Those who deal with him in the future might now do so with a degree of caution. He has probably copped enough flak in these comments to bring the message home to him - or at least I hope he has. I like the premise for PublicBeta, and it would be a shame if that service were tarred with the same brush.