Ask YC: Good time & ways to launch

Cool site. The calendar isn't working properly, though (you have to refresh to view events you add if they aren't on the current day). I also somehow ended up at the year 20070 at one point just by pressing the next link.

Regarding how to launch: I'd wait until you're ready first (this is obviously more like an Alpha launch, so just showing it to the YC community was a good first step). Once you are, you can do the normal digg and bloggers route, but even better is to figure out who are your target users and try to get in touch with them. Advertise on a site or in a publication they all read (try to negotiate and get this for free in exchange for something else). You can write a press release if it makes you feel good, but odds are no one's going to read it at this stage--it never hurts, though.

Otherwise, just try to get in touch with your users and ask them to spread the word. Sending a personal email to the early adopters would probably go a long way--ask them what they thought about it, what could you improve, then tell them you'd appreciate it if they could tell their friends. People like cool T-shirts too...

Definitely post on a Monday or early in the week if you can. Fridays are for bad news, no one cares on the weekend, or holidays for that matter. Bad idea to come out on January 1st if it's a mainstream release. Otherwise it doesn't matter too much.

Good luck.

Looks pretty cool. I'd remove the political advocacy link at the bottom though.

Don't get too many people to seed sites like Digg for you -- we got buried yesterday when we launched http://www.commandshift3.com because we got a lot of our friends Digg us and they blocked it. It got on the front page of Reddit and del.icio.us completely organically, without any action on our part..

This is a fantastic resource when dealing with the traditional media. Something I would highly recommend you do, when you launch, in earnest.

The Care and Feeding of The Press: http://www.netpress.org/careandfeeding.html

Great question, we're running into the same issues with our startup http://freemyfriends.com. Not sure how to get the word out without paying for a PR campaign. At the very least, we're just looking for feedback on our API.

This article on Guy Kawasaki's blog talks about how word of mouth from normal everyday folks is worth more than trying to get high-profile people to talk about you.

http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2007/12/word-of-mouth-v.html

Thinking that way would also push you in the right long-term direction. "How can I make a product worthy of being talked about?" vs "How am I going to get this in front of celebrities"

Before you worry about the when and how, you should take a step back and be clear on your launch time goal.

With your initial launch, you don't necessarily want a big PR hit that draws 1000s of users to checkout your site. What you do want is a small group that joins your site and gives you feedback. Go for the big PR hit when you are more sure from your small user-base that you have a great product.

That was our plan. Fortunately(or unfortunately) we posted on the techcrunch forums and some people loved it and passed it to digg and soon it made the TC homepage without even submitting to them--making to TC was our 3 month goal.

You should launch on Tuesdays or Wednesdays. Mondays still feel like weekends, and Friday everyone wants weekend to happen. Thursday is also not as good because people wait for fridays.

When your product is mature, it could be very different from what you started out with upon launching. It's hubris to think you'll get it right the first time. I'd say, therefore, don't worry about stuff like this at all. Launch but don't make a big stink about it on the blagoweb.

In other words, you don't want the Marimba Phenomenon to bite you in the ass.

Disclaimer: I'm a wage slave and I have never worked in a startup environment.

I think you need to take the long view. Based on your comments you're looking at tactics instead of strategy. I should know, I'm guilty of that.

Focus on making something good. Focus on providing real value. Focus on having fun. Focus on getting solid and stable. The traffic and money will come.