The Value of a Velvet Rope: Effects of Hype and Exclusivity on Launch Strategies

What does this “building in public” phenomenon actually look like in action? For both Allred and Domm, it looked like vulnerability and authenticity.

One of the most well-known leaders of the “building in public” phenomenon is Austen Allred, Founder & CEO of Lambda School. Allred largely built his company on Twitter, and those who followed him got to see him build Lambda in real time.

The playbook starts with TestFlight, an app that allows startups to soft-launch their own products before publicly hitting the App Store. Until recently, TestFlight was mainly employed as a place for a company’s inner circle to test an app, give feedback, and share bugs. Due to its “invite-only” nature, however, TestFlight has recently become a pop... See more

The idea of being “in” is an economy in itself: streetwear drops, exclusive social clubs, and now, as we’ve seen, viral consumer social products, which we’ll be focusing on for this piece.

It has some psychological ground, too: according to Rene Girard’s mimetic theory, we tend to want things simply because other people want them. Human desire is not an autonomous process but a collective one — this is how we decide what we care about.