[digikata]

Can you share a little more detail re: the signup/how it works pages? Did they just describe the product and say signup if you're interested? Did you let on that there was no product yet, or that it was "in development", or no status at all? What does one do with 20k interested customers between lining up investment and actually delivering product?

[anonauthor]

What I didn't mention in the post is that we didn't have a backend programmer until we had 20k people signed up, so no code was a byproduct of our situation, not a matter of pride.

Because we had so much hype before our product we had a miserable launch. We tried to delay it as long as we could, but feared losing interest if we waited too long.

In terms of signup/how it works, we gave people a storyline that we felt would attract interest (which it did), we also used exclusivity. We gave a intended launch date, which eventually bit us in the ass (will never do that again).

[digikata]

Thanks for sharing what you could. It was certainly interesting for me.