Era of Invites
Warning
A few days ago people were sharing a site that lists the apps pinned in their dock, dockhunt.com. Great concept, so I added mine. Then I got an interesting question.
And not just Amie. People asked if I had invites for Texts, Tana, Artifact, and more. It didn't used to work like this. There was internal alpha, then closed beta as a secretive survey, or open beta where I could simply sign up and enjoy the testing. Now invites are a somewhat closed-but-open beta. Which raises a question.
Why are all successful startup companies use invitations now?
Survivorship bias first. We don't remember successful startups with no invite system, and all unsuccessful startups with an invitation system will never reach your attention. Did ChatGPT need an invite? Nope.
That said, invites do harness some social engineering techniques.
Association with friends. When we invite a friend, that friend will likely download and try the service, knowing a buddy recommended it. After all, it can't go wrong from word of mouth. There's a network effect too. If I get an invite, I'm more prone to share it with friends, thinking about who would be a good fit for this app.
Avoid operational hazards. Early startups mostly do not have a proper load-balancing system, not to mention the myriad bugs and errors inside. First impressions always last. Mine was Notion in early 2018. It was extremely sluggish and frustrating, and it took me two whole years to retry it. Invites will also save the Ops team a lot of work.
Excite and gather the core audience. People crave the unpossessables. With an invite a company can build a whole experience outside its own reach, making a hype-based fan group on social media. Invites are one of the best ways to make people actively seek other users on the platform, echoing more interest across the internet. Of course, this eventually builds Fear of Missing Out (FOMO). That's a topic for another day.
A priceless gift. Combined, an app invitation sometimes feels like a priceless gift even when it has nothing to do with exclusivity. Sometimes it comes with a unique integration. Back when NFTs were still a thing, I bought Superlocal's Early Access Ticket. OpenSea
Clubhouse. The most significant stimulus for companies must have been Clubhouse, a prime success example of invite-based growth. A picture is worth a thousand words, let alone a $4B success.
In the end invites are just a structured beta. Before, betas were location based (early Facebook) or group studies (most games).
One more thing. These successful invite-based software companies are primarily elite small yet mighty teams. So why don't big techs use invites for a new service? Does that imply that, with enough resources, invite-only is inferior to a mass-market opening?
I agree with Nat here, especially ② really easy to try. He probably meant onboarding, but that includes installation and getting access, often blocked by invite locks. I believe there should be a better way for talented technophiles to get in without an invite. It would be a net benefit for the company.
Not universal, but the pattern I tend to notice in successful new startup products:
- never heard of this, but sounds intriguing
- really easy to try
- "HOLY SHIT!" in the first 2 minutes
- sustained daily usage thereafter
— Nat Friedman (@natfriedman) November 24, 2022