When should a product make itself invite only?

Question

Daryl Bartkunsky · Accepted Answer

Making a product/service invite only can be used as a marketing funnel to drive up hype and indirectly brand awareness it is said "Everyone wants what everyone else wants"

Sam Bauer · Answer

@sbrands doorkeeper-effect

Deep Sherchan · Answer

There are many reasons where you can use Invite only strategy:
1. When the product is still on beta phase and you are aware that there are many bugs on it. Invite only can help you get relevant feedback and not overwhelm your team.

2. As a launch strategy, you can use to create buzz and measure demand for the product. It is a popular method used by many Saas startups.

3. The other important reason would be to filter your user and ensure that you have a right kind of customers. Not every tool is for everyone. But everyone has an opinion to share about your product. So if you are aware that your product might get negative criticism for a reason which isn't valid then you can choose to filter the right audience and only server them. Not every product needs to reach 1 million users. If you can build a niche which you can retain. It is a good way.

4. If your product uses certain technology which you don't want to make public. There are certain products we find which looks so well guarded in terms of what they do and their pricing. They are expensive too. So for such tools, it doesn't make sense to make it open for everyone. This is mostly true is case of large enterprise softwares.

5. Lastly, when your onboard processing isn't smooth :). Yes, when your onboarding isn't smooth and you are still working on it. Users can quickly get disappointed when they log in and start using your platform. Will make much sense if you filter right users so that the onboarding experience doesn't become key deciding factor. There are many tools which are complicated to use and requires time and effort from users to generate true value. Invite only can help you filter users who are willingly to take time. Can help you avoid crunch rate an server the right audience.

Rahul Arora · Answer

@timz_flowers There may be more to it than just infra

Sam Bauer · Answer

@rahul__arora Systems are containing all processes and artifacts, so in my understanding the „more“ - whatever it is - should also be contained in this generic approach of putting it

Piotr Gaczkowski · Answer

I agree with both @timz_flowers and @sbrands . The two reasons for making a product invite-only that I see is:
1. Not being able to satisfy the demand for rapid growth.
2. Wanting to create a hype a virality around the product. This could be further boosted by letting people jump ahead of the queue when they share the info about the product publicly, for example.

Fizzap Social Network · Answer

I saw one product lately that only allows accounts to be created via an invite.  BIG mistake, why must anyone limit the potential user base of any product by using this kind of flawed idea?  Remember people are generally lazy and they will be reluctant to pass on invites anyway because 1. its a hassle  2. its more work.   .... which equals near zero invites and no new users.

When should a product make itself invite only?

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