Dissection of a viral launch
iubenda.com
iubenda.com
Privacy policies are one of those convenience things. If you don't have to write one yourself and outsourcing it saves precious time and money, great. However, if you do, it's hardly the end of the world: it's going to take you a few hours to write at most and not a huge amount of money for a lawyer to review it.
You're hardly going to wait around to launch your entire project because someone didn't want to let you use their pet social experiment^W^Wprivacy policy generator tool. Moreover, there are plenty of free alternatives from reputable sources already available[1] if you just want something to make sure you're covered legally and need it Right Now. And of course, once you've done one, chances are you know enough to do any future ones yourself anyway.
My guess is that if these guys really do only have 200 or so active users but 2,700 or so on their waiting list, they are blowing a massive opportunity and going to waste most of those 2,700 by missing the train. Their service is a quick-and-easy thing, and they are making it hard. I notice that the one thing obviously missing from their "Launch by the numbers" summary is an indication of whether all those numbers are worth any real money.
[1] For example, in the UK, Business Link provide this sample:
http://www.businesslink.gov.uk/bdotg/action/detail?itemId=10...
I wrote a comment on HN before, about privacy policies and why current solutions suck. Here's the link: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2911830
The reason why we didn't launch the product yet, is that we are not ready. We are working really hard with our beta testers to improve it, and to solve some of the problems you mentioned too.
Now, instead of a bunch of useless words, can I ask you to watch a demo of what we're about to launch? Skip if you want, but take a look at the real product and tell me what you think:
http://f.cl.ly/items/3Q2600072w2w3a0V3B3B/Screeny%20Video%20...
FWIW, if you had an interface like that to generate a quick template as a starting point for a privacy policy, which I could then download to customise for my own business needs, and it was available for a modest fee per use, then that would be interesting.
However, I wouldn't be interested in any sort of ongoing relationship/subscription deal. I'd see this as a one-off job. If the service were cheap/easy enough, it's a one-off job I might come back to do again for any new sites or policy updates later, though.
The result would absolutely have to be some sort of text document or HTML+CSS package that I could download and modify myself, not a link back to your site. This policy has legal implications in Europe, as I'm sure you're aware, and having it hosted by third parties so my users are seeing something beyond my direct control would be a deal-breaker.
The UI itself looks very clean and easy to use, if you could only fix the lag/endless spinners that seem to come up all the time. To me, those would make it painful to come back and use over and over again, even if I used it once to get a starting point for my first privacy policy.
I stand by my earlier view of your launch process, though: This sort of service could have value I would pay for if it were relatively cheap (compared to my time and any legal fees it saves) and something I could just use instantly when I needed it. However, there's no way I would mess around waiting for it, and all that silliness with forced viral marketing looks like a social experiment rather than a service that's there to benefit me as a paying customer. Perhaps you've decided that this doesn't matter if you're not planning to continue with that approach once you've launched and are open to everyone?
About "embedding vs template", templates just suck. Our product is about giving users a far better privacy policy, which is a piece of design, usability and information architecture. You can't achieve this without embedding.
Moreover, embedding is better because: - It's faster to integrate - No maintenance needed - The policy can be updated remotely (both by us and by the user) - The result is just beautiful, opens as a lightbox, has icons :)
There are also business-related reasons why embedding is better than template.
About the UI, the lags are caused by my development local machine, on the production server there's instant feedback on every action. Sorry for that.
On the rest, I get your point, and again: the reason for the private beta wall is that we're not ready. About the product itself, I can assure that our users are crazy about it :)
Exactly. That's why it would be difficult to use your service in most of Europe without risking legal trouble.
I wish you luck. I'm sure you'll launch with a very elegant solution to a problem. I just hope it's the problem that most of your potential customers actually have.
About the problem, it's weak if you own a personal website, but relevant if you sell websites to other people, for example if you are a freelance web designer or a web agency.
One of the goals of this first period of MVP was to test the need, and now we have many, many people praising for the product :)
I think that the problem is if the market is big enough for this product. Since the market is 'every website in the world', we can afford that part of it doesn't care of the problem, and still keep having millions and millions of potential customers.
If your product is truly viral within its core user base those users will tweet and talk about the product anyway.
It would be nice if iubenda does something similar a few months after they exit private beta to show us what numbers are real and what is just success theater.
About what's real, I think that it's mostly the need. I read every tweet that comes on the "iubenda" search, and frequently look to the profile of the user behind. Most of the times the user is a web designer, which proves that people subscribe because they feel the need. Moreover, I interview almost every beta tester that we invite, and again I get people really passionate about the product.
I think that the marketing-driven risk is mitigated by the fact that the product is explained very well on the website, and people signup only if in need of the product.
One thing though - the name. It means nothing to me, I can't spell it, and I'm going to forget it. Perhaps something more direct like YourPrivacyPolicy.com would be better?
Still, I think you can do better on the name. :)