It’s a popular strategy these days – putting up a mysterious landing page claiming you are creating the next “big thing” and asking people to sign-up for the beta, not even knowing what it is. And guess what? It works! Curiosity gets the better of us and we opt in, handing out email address over to some strange start-up, anxiously awaiting to test out their new product.
Stealth mode can definitely be an effective way of raising early curiosity and getting people to sign up for something before you are ready to launch it. It raises hype and creates a stir.
Here is the problem though: when you don’t tell us anything about what this new product/service is, we are free to let our imagination go wild. The issue there is that chances are, we are going to imagine your thing to be crazy awesome. So cool, so bold – so game changing, that it is too good to be true. And that is precisely what it is. Because when you finally do unveil it, that anxious early adopter will more than likely be disappointed. The real thing didn’t live up to the wild fantasy – it rarely ever does.
Bottom line: think carefully about the go-to-market strategy. Sometimes, a mix of stealth & some handy clues is the most effective way to get the right people excited about a new venture.