Good Way to Launch Beta Product

One of the aspects of launching a software product is how to manage the transition from alpha to closed beta to open beta to beyond beta. Many companies seem to get this wrong.

For example, I frequently see that a company gets extensive TechCrunch coverage when they ‘launch’ their private beta. When I go to the homepage, all I get to see is ‘launching soon’, sign up for the closed beta. At that point, my personal relationship with that company has already hit a low point. What good is it to ‘launch’ a product like that? Besides, I am sorry to say, but you don’t ‘launch’ a product into a private beta. Launch implies it is launched to the public. Why waste PR in this way? Why make the users unhappy before they have even seen what you do?

I have recently come across a well executed beta launch. The company that did it was SearchMe, an Internet search company.

Here is what they did. I saw them on TechCrunch, where they got positive coverage. I then went to their homepage. On the homepage, there were several teaser videos of what the SearchMe search engine was doing. They were very well done videos and they streamed fast. This was clever. It educated me about the product before I got to even see it. I then signed up for the open beta by providing my email address. This is also clever. They managed to get my email address (presumable so they continue to contact me in the future, aka benevolent spam) before I even started using the service.

I got invited into the open beta exactly (I am not kidding) seven days after signing up. Here is what the email looked like:

There are many things that are very clever about this email. For example, first, they emailed the invitation out not immediately, but with exactly a week’s delay. They made me wait. Then they made me feel special about getting in (Woo-Hoo!). Then they forewarned me: this is a beta, there will be problems. Essentially they remind me of the limitations of the system. Then they mention the feedback and support email addresses at least three times in the email. Only after I have looked at all of that, am I allowed onto the website.

Then, on the website, they ask me many more questions about me (they didn’t first time round) to complete the registration process. Now I am keen to get in, so I fill all these boxes in (well, actually I did it because I thought they had done well so far).

Only then do I start using the service. Again, next to the search engine is a box that says: this is a beta, it will be buggy, please click here to email us with feedback. I actually used the service, thought about the limitations, and gave them candid feedback.

Regardless of what I think about the product, this was a well executed beta launch. Let’s list these steps:

Whole product ready for public beta testing
Website up and running with teaser/explanation videos
Simple sign-up system in place
PR coverage that drives traffic to sign-up page
Signing up of beta tester
Let beta tester in automatically one week later – this guarantees that users use it on the same day and at the same time – both of which I guess is convenient to them – but it results in a feeling of scarcity and feeling special to be allowed in, but it is close enough to the sign-up date so that people don’t loose interest
Invitation email that details:
- Explanation of limitations
- Email addresses of support and feedback
- Link to login
Login that asks optional additional questions
Beta product access
Constant reminder and request to leave feedback via ‘click here’

They can now track me and my usage by cohort. I have no doubts that they will contact me again, probably in exactly four weeks time, to let me know of developments and to keep me using the service. They even have an unsubscribe button in place in the first email, giving me the opportunity to opt out of the service any time. Good stuff. I wish all products were beta released like that.

Do you have any additional suggestions on how to best release a beta product?

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How do I develop a great product?

This weekend, I met a friend of a friend who told me that she wanted to start her own company. She asked me what the most important, or most difficult thing, in the process was. My answer was that the most difficult thing is to find customers and to make them happy. Happy customers will come back and buy more from you. They will tell their friends about you. If you can start a business with a few happy customers and grow it from there: perfect. In the second most ideal situation, you have extreme confidence based on buyer interaction that you will have customers whom you can make happy.

So how do you get to have happy customers? The basic answer is that you need a product or service that, from the customer’s point of view, is simply great. The press frequently displays these successful products as ‘an act of genius’. This is very misleading. In my experience, you get ‘great’ products when you continuously iterate and improve them. Hardly any product is great first time round.

For example, let’s take the iPod. The iPod is a result of the genius of Steve Jobs right? Wrong. The iPod was actually not very successful for a very long period of time. Over three years to be precise. Don’t believe me, look up the sales numbers on Wikipedia. The iPod was released in 2001, but it took until 2004 before the sales numbers really started to take off. There is a number of contributing reason why this is, but one is certainly the way in which the iPod had been re-iterated and continuously improved over time.

In many companies (and in the mind of many entrepreneurs and journalists), the way in which products are developed, marketed, and sold follows are more or less linear process:

There is no feed-back loop within the system, or maybe there is feedback, but the company doesn’t care about it. More successful companies operate an iterative system that uses feedback:

If you continuously iterate and improve your product, you will (eventually/hopefully) arrive at a point, where your product really hits the sweet-spot of the customer. Beyond that, you run into a zone of diminishing returns (see how the iPod sales figures haven’t really improved beyond 2005?).

How many iterations does it take? Depends. It took Microsoft three iterations of Windows to get to a successful product (Windows 3.1), and six to make it really work (Windows XP). It took YouTube one iteration to make it work (embedded videos and the ‘find similar’ function). It took four generations of iPods. It took 2.5 generations of the Toyota Prius (the first generation didn’t sell well at all and the second only sold after the first face lift). Adobe Acrobat needed one iteration (the free Reader).

So, back to the friend of the friend who wanted to start a company. The mistake many start-ups make is to think that they can produce a successful product without having to go through several iterations, before they actually hit the sweet-spot. That is when companies usually go bust.

In my mind, the key to successful start-up is to keep the burn-rate low, get a product out in the market, sell it a bit, spend very little money on marketing and sales, see what customers think, modify your product and then to re-iterate that process. Eventually, you will get to a point when you either hit the sweet-spot or where you don’t. If you do, then is the time to start hiring additional staff, premises etc. If you can’t find the sweet-spot after a number of iterations, it may well be time to shut down and start something new.

Market entry strategy

There is a very interesting blog that reviews the history of successful start-up companies. Unsurprisingly, the blog is called Start-up Review. The blog is edited by Nisan Gabbay and friends. So far they have reviewed some 30 start-ups, using a consistent format for describing the successful journey of these companies. They do some in-depth research, including interviews with founders, management and staff. Companies covered include both homeruns like Facebook and boot-strapped successes such as HOTorNOT.

When reading through these company case studies, I noticed that certain themes around marketing and market entry seemed to resurface consistently. The same elements, while not present in every company, appeared over and over again in different combinations. In other words: a pattern seemed to emerge.

I spend a short time categorising the marketing and market entry strategies of the companies. The resultant effort is shown below. Please note that my analysis is based on the case studies, I am convinced that it is incomplete and it may also be inaccurate. What is more interesting than the individual companies is the pattern itself.

Click on the picture for a larger version.

It is probably worth noting that the absence of a control group of unsuccessful companies limits the usefulness of this analysis. For example, it is possible that unsuccessful companies deployed the same marketing strategies at market entry and failed. Nonetheless, it is interesting to see that certain types of market entry and marketing strategies are used by several of the successful companies.

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