a single source, nothing corroborates it

Sell a beta, then close the doors before launch

Take money for early access, pull the product off sale for a stretch, and let the official launch be its own event. The beta buyers fund and debug the thing while the closed window rebuilds the appetite that early selling just spent. Justin Jackson and Nathan Barry ran this shape separately, one over a 45 day gap and one as a paid beta open for a single day.

The method

1. 01

   Structure a launch in three moves: sell an early beta, take the product off sale for a stretch, then run the official launch on a fixed date.

2. 02

   If the product will not be finished by your launch date, run it as a paid beta that is open for 24 hours only, then take it offline and use buyer feedback to finish it.

What it returned

• 45

  For Marketing for Developers Justin ran a beta sale, closed sales for 45 days, and launched officially on October 15.

• 14

  Beta launch on January 14, 2014 sold $35,732 in roughly 25 hours

Sources

• Pricing experiment resultsJustin Jackson · justinjackson.ca · Pricing experiment results · undated
• Should you launch more than once? I’ve got $58,332 as evidence.Nathan Barry · nathanbarry.com · Multiple launches for Photoshop for Interface Design · 2014-02-28