Ask YC: How do we announce the alpha launch? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask YC: How do we announce the alpha launch?

#21

Post by cperciva » Mon, Aug 04, 2008, 1:45 AM UTC

prashantdesale wrote: post #14

cperciva wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alpha tests are, by definition, internal-only. There are several different definitions. One definition I like is that alpha testing is when you know there are still missing features, while beta testing is when the planned features exist and you're just trying to make sure that they all work properly -- in which case you could very easily have public alpha testing.

We have done lot of testing on our application using some external users as well and fixed close to 2k bugs to make it more stable. As you are suggesting, we are planning public Alpha.

fixed close to 2k bugs

* blink *

How much code do you have? I've been writing code for my own startup for about 20 months, and after 25k lines of code I'd say I've fixed maybe 50 bugs in total.

Re: Ask YC: How do we announce the alpha launch?

#22

Post by agotterer » Mon, Aug 04, 2008, 2:17 AM UTC

prashantdesale wrote: post #19

drandall wrote: post #17

If you do announce something, don't call it a 'launch' call it an 'alpha.' When you do a beta, call it a beta. Don't use the word launch until you're ready, b/c any news is going to say "But you launched in August! What's new?" and all you can say is "We're out of beta" or something like that.

Very good advice. You are absolutely right. I did not think of that. Thank you very much.

That actually happened to use with PriceAdvance. We "launched" our beta and then officially launched a few months later and a number of write ups mentioned we had already previously launched.

Also if your going to submit to techcrunch, make sure they are the first. They like to break news. You have a better chance of being covered if they get dibs.

Re: Ask YC: How do we announce the alpha launch?

#23

Post by abstractbill » Mon, Aug 04, 2008, 2:48 AM UTC

You list "Create Wikipedia page for Onista". I wouldn't advise it - you'll just get the page deleted immediately for not being notable.

Re: Ask YC: How do we announce the alpha launch?

#24

Post by huhtenberg » Mon, Aug 04, 2008, 3:39 AM UTC

> 8. Create Wikipedia page for Onista.

Wikipedia is not a promotion vehicle and using it as such is one of the most blatant and despised violations of WP editing policies (which you should familiarize yourselves with). Your article will be speedy-deleted; moreover, it will be very hard to restore the article later on even if your project does become notable. Keep this in mind.

Re: Ask YC: How do we announce the alpha launch?

#25

Post by prashantdesale » Mon, Aug 04, 2008, 3:43 AM UTC

huhtenberg wrote: post #24

> 8. Create Wikipedia page for Onista. Wikipedia is not a promotion vehicle and using it as such is one of the most blatant and despised violations of WP editing policies (which you should familiarize yourselves with). Your article will be speedy-deleted; moreover, it will be very hard to restore the article later on even if your project does become notable. Keep this in mind.

Thanks a lot. I was not aware of it.

Re: Ask YC: How do we announce the alpha launch?

#26

Post by prashantdesale » Mon, Aug 04, 2008, 6:40 AM UTC

cperciva wrote: post #21

prashantdesale wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have done lot of testing on our application using some external users as well and fixed close to 2k bugs to make it more stable. As you are suggesting, we are planning public Alpha.

fixed close to 2k bugs * blink * How much code do you have? I've been writing code for my own startup for about 20 months, and after 25k lines of code I'd say I've fixed maybe 50 bugs in total.

There is lot of code. Onista is amalgam of eBay, Priceline, LendingTree, Alibaba and LinkedIn. When I say that, what I'm trying to say is that site has lots and lots of features. We have done testing using different data set and lots of scenarios to find bugs. We also redesigned lot of features. It did take us to fix close to 2k bugs to get to stable state.

Re: Ask YC: How do we announce the alpha launch?

#27

Post by swombat » Mon, Aug 04, 2008, 8:04 AM UTC

wheels wrote: post #6

swombat wrote: post #2

How about starting by getting some target users using it and seeing whether they spread the word and recommend it to their friends? The rest is all very nice, but a bit OTT for an alpha launch. Not putting down your work at all, but anything that hasn't got real users yet is probably still a long way from being worthy of being officially "launched". If you media-blitz and overhype it and it's not ready, you'll end up…

I sometimes read things like this and wonder if I should honestly take them seriously or not. Cuil did great on the PR front. Sure, their product wasn't all that wonderful, but getting that much attention even if lackluster is something most startups can only dream of. We're in a similar situation to the poster, but since we're B2B our "testing" basically means working with two customers. We're planning on launching…

I totally agree. There is a lot of power in the launch. That's why you should only use it once you have something that can actually impress then tens of thousands of people who'll come and have a look.

You say Cuil did a great job on the marketing. Yes, they did. However, most people who went and tried Cuil had a bad experience. That compares very unfavourably with Google, which is unflinchingly brilliant. Result? Sure, Cuil did great by getting (say) a million people to try them on the first day. But of that million, maybe a thousand will actually use them more than once.

It's not really worth going through all that PR work if your stick rate is only 0.1%. Unless, of course, the whole thing was about investors / buyers, not about users (which I believe is the case).

Re: Ask YC: How do we announce the alpha launch?

#28

Post by demandred » Mon, Aug 04, 2008, 11:13 AM UTC

Just release already.

This from 28 February 08 (and blog posts dating back about 9 to 10 months as well):

We have been working on our Social Marketplace “Onista” for quite sometime and every week (and every month) we think we are almost ready for launch “only if we fix these remaining little issues”. To be honest, there is no such thing called “little issues”. There are bugs in product (tons of bugs) and we must fix those before launching.