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How much is "too much" to spend on your launch?

2 points by brianlynn11 ↗ HN
I'm launching a product that requires network effects. Now we have partners who can throw a launch party and get the top influencers in the community to download the app. Let's say the product needs about 100 active users in a single day to work. If you were running this project, how much would you spend on the launch?

My "guesstimates" right now is like this:

Launch Party 200 attendees - 50% downloads the app - 30% actively use the app = 30 active users

If we can bootstrap the parties to around $2k, that mean the total costs might be $6k+. Do you think that's worth it base on your experience?

Thanks for any feedback/comments.

5 comments

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benologist
$6000+ to get 30 users.... that's $200+/user before you even know if anyone likes what you've done.

I have my doubts about "influencers" as well ... I'm skeptical that success could be as simple as getting some dude with a bunch of twitter followers to use you.

AznHisoka
I agree. The math sounds awful. 100 active users is nothing, and will equate to 1 active user in 2 months.
staunch
If you can spend $6k to make your thing work then sure it's worth it. It's more likely that you'll find your party doesn't convert nearly as well as you hope and the users aren't nearly as sticky.

You are probably far better off spending that $6k promoting your startup on the web. The nice thing about marketing on the web is you can run significant experiments for $200 vs $2000.

brianlynn11
Thanks for all the input guys. I like your way of thinking on a per user basis, and also raising the concern with how effective the "influencers" will truly be.

Launch party is just part of the strategy. I'm definitely leveraging many low cost channels as well. Just needed some outside perspective :)

iamjonlee
I think that it all boils down to how good your end product is. Tweets by top influencers will bring in some initial traffic but it'll quickly die out. I think it would make more sense to build a landing page to showcase your product early and then use the 2-3k to generate a slow but steady stream of signups of people that will try it. You'll get a much bigger bang for your buck and have some extra cash lying around. But like I mentioned, the % of active users will really depend on your end product.