How 37signals manufactured a successful launch of highrise in 7 steps

  1. Get the word out early On dec.21 2005, 37signals annouce their new project on their blog. Originally highrise was called sunrise.
  2. Keep them interested So 37signals initially announced highrise on December 2005 and it launched in March 2007, thats alot of in between time. To keep highrise on peoples mind they release little teaser posts on their blog every now and then. These type of posts can quickly turnoff readers, to combat this 37signals combine quality informative posts while at the same time relating it to highrise. Heres an example, 37signals talk about their design decisions, they mention highrise and thow in a screenshot. Now they offer their readers solid information while at the same time they are advertising their upcoming product.
  3. Show them the money Ok now its about 2-3 weeks before launch. Its time to release some hard details about highrise on their blog. They dont release 1 long post, instead they chunk their posts and release 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 previews.
  4. Kick in the permission marketing Ok people are interested, now its time to kick in the permission marketing. 37signals entice their readers to sign up for the highrise mailing list by offering ‘golden tickets’ to random people who sign up. ‘Golden ticket’ holders get access to highrise a few days before it launches. What a brilliant way to get people on the mailing list, offer them a chance to use it before anyone else does.
  5. Make the announcement Highrise launches, they send out an email to everyone on their mailing list and ofcourse they post it on their blog.
  6. Hold back a bit and generate goodwill A couple of days after the launch they generate goodwill by upping quotas. They also opened up some features (’cases’) that were previously only available on the higher paying plans. This is a pretty good strategy. Hold back (speculation) on a important feature at launch, let a few people complain and then open them up under the mantra ‘we’re listening to feedback’. The bottom line is it generates goodwill, and the users are happy.
  7. Make another announcement Lastly, They email everyone on their mailing list again to announce the upped quota.

Very few companies can pull off such a successful launch. It helps to know how people that are on top of their game orchestrate a successful launch.

Posted by strong Filed in Startup tips

4 Responses to “How 37signals manufactured a successful launch of highrise in 7 steps”

  1. Carl Hudson Says:
    March 24th, 2007 at 11:04 pm

    All sounds pretty sound. Only time will tell if what they executed will be successful in the short term as well as the long term.

    Your post gives a good guide on how one might announce their site/app/widget :) but I think this approach, generally, would only work for well known entities.

  2. strong Says:
    March 25th, 2007 at 7:14 am

    Ya I agree. Its definitely much easier to have a successful launch when you are already established and have 50,000+ subscribers to your feed.

    Having said that, you have to start somewhere, and this looks like a good pattern to follow.

    If you look back and checkout the launch of ‘campfire’ the pattern was roughly the same.

  3. Dean Says:
    August 26th, 2007 at 7:56 am

    This is a great articel. Thank you!

  4. music Says:
    January 7th, 2008 at 2:15 am

    very interesting.
    i’m adding in RSS Reader

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