Learning: the smallest assumptions can cause big confusion

It is common practice among startups to put up a holding page with an email collection mechanism before they launch their offering. Heck, there are even products made for this very purpose! It’s a great way of testing interest in your idea, or getting a kickstart on bringing people into your product once it is launched. We’ve learnt a few hard lessons about the best way of doing this and how to make it better. (Skip to end for TL;DR version)

With an email list, it is easy to make the assumptions that the people who signed up to it are aware of:

1. who you are. How long ago did they visit your holding page? How many other holding pages might they have visited since then?
2. what your product is all about. Related to 1. but with the added complexity that most holding pages don’t actually contain much information about the product. Which is fine, given that most startups have no idea where they’ll be when they put it up. Or the product might have changed despite a descriptor.
3. the fact that they dropped their email address into a mailing list. Do they think they signed up to something instead?
4. the general startup scene and how it works. Who are the people on your mailing list really? How much awareness do they have of how things (usually) go?

The thing about making these assumptions is that it affects the way you message your launch announcement email. ‘Message’ here refers not to PR-type branding/image/general announcement language, but knowledge transfer. The information you convey to your mailing list is critical to the conversions you get from email subscriber to product user.

Your first mailout upon launch needs to (re)inform people about your product. What it is, what problem it solves, and what value it offers to them. It needs to prepare people about what they face once they click on the link in the email. Do they need to sign up? Does sign up involve filling in a form? Will they be automatically logged in? Will they only be able to log in using 3rd-party applications?
It is best to be upfront about the process and I’d suggest writing up a step-by-step guide. When people know what to expect there is less friction when going through it.

TL;DR version: be aware of the assumptions you’re making and do as much as you can to address these in your communications with the rest of the world.