In the last month or so, I’ve noticed an irritating trend in the startup world: After adding my email to a launch page, I get asked to submit a few of my friends’ email addresses in exchange for a higher place in line or earlier access. This has happened at least twice when I’ve checked out a startup after meeting an entrepreneur, and two or three times after I’ve spoken with a friend about a cool company and gone to check it out. I find it annoying, but it’s a trend that has blossomed, mostly because it appears to work.
Damian Kimmelman, founder and CEO of DueDil, a financial information startup that’s shutting down its social invite program as it opens up its beta to more people, said the company saw its invite pool swell by a third thanks to folks sharing email addresses of their friends. But most important was the psychological effect Kimmelman felt it has on the invitees. In an IM conversation, he said it helps prioritize users when you can only let a few people into a beta at one time and he added, “[A]lso you are a free service, but you kinda want people to value the service from day 1.”
To read the full, original article click on this link: The New Early Adopter Trend: Shilling for Startups: Tech News and Analysis «
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