Breaking up with Apple, Hello OnePlus 3
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@Carnival-Boy said in Breaking up with Apple, Hello OnePlus 3:
At that price, it's a wonder why anyone still bothers buying Apple or Samsung products (with their own money).
Their invite process is a pretty big turn off for one
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Invite process?
Did you order a cover Breff? The bamboo looks pretty cool.
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@Carnival-Boy said in Breaking up with Apple, Hello OnePlus 3:
Invite process?
Did you order a cover Breff? The bamboo looks pretty cool.
The original had invite purchases. I don't think the new ones do though.
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@scottalanmiller said
Their invite process is a pretty big turn off for one
What do you mean? I just went on the site, hit buy, job done.
@Carnival-Boy said
Did you order a cover Breff? The bamboo looks pretty cool.
I don't know, the covers on the site looked meh, I ordered a third party one via amazon with good reviews.
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@Breffni-Potter said in Breaking up with Apple, Hello OnePlus 3:
@scottalanmiller said
Their invite process is a pretty big turn off for one
What do you mean? I just went on the site, hit buy, job done.
Ah, last time I looked that wasn't an option. Pretty major turn off to tell potential customers to go away, that they aren't interested in you. Maybe someone had a chat with them about their bad customer (or potential customer) service.
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@scottalanmiller said in Breaking up with Apple, Hello OnePlus 3:
@Breffni-Potter said in Breaking up with Apple, Hello OnePlus 3:
@scottalanmiller said
Their invite process is a pretty big turn off for one
What do you mean? I just went on the site, hit buy, job done.
Ah, last time I looked that wasn't an option. Pretty major turn off to tell potential customers to go away
I wouldn't say its a major turn off, makes a product more exclusive and actually helps what is a newer business in a ridiculously competitive market manage costs/expectations. They've done really really well as a company and when you are competing with the big boys out there, sometimes you do need to be different to succeed.
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@Breffni-Potter said in Breaking up with Apple, Hello OnePlus 3:
@scottalanmiller said in Breaking up with Apple, Hello OnePlus 3:
@Breffni-Potter said in Breaking up with Apple, Hello OnePlus 3:
@scottalanmiller said
Their invite process is a pretty big turn off for one
What do you mean? I just went on the site, hit buy, job done.
Ah, last time I looked that wasn't an option. Pretty major turn off to tell potential customers to go away
I wouldn't say its a major turn off, makes a product more exclusive and actually helps what is a newer business in a ridiculously competitive market manage costs/expectations. They've done really really well as a company and when you are competing with the big boys out there, sometimes you do need to be different to succeed.
Different is not the same as snubbing interested customers. The MSP market is like you describe too, go try telling people calling you for service to F off and see if it helps your business.
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@scottalanmiller said
Different is not the same as snubbing interested customers. The MSP market is like you describe too, go try telling people calling you for service to F off and see if it helps your business.
How is having an invite/referral process the same as telling people to F off?
As I said, they were a new-comer to the market, who initially were trying to get the right balance of distribution, supply and so on, so yes they throttled the demand intentionally so that for the customers they had, they could get the service right rather then guessing, launching badly and forever being tainted.
Kind regards,
Not in the MSP market. -
@Breffni-Potter said in Breaking up with Apple, Hello OnePlus 3:
@scottalanmiller said
Different is not the same as snubbing interested customers. The MSP market is like you describe too, go try telling people calling you for service to F off and see if it helps your business.
How is having an invite/referral process the same as telling people to F off?
How is it not? What's the difference? You come looking for a service and get turned away. It's that simple.
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@Breffni-Potter said in Breaking up with Apple, Hello OnePlus 3:
Kind regards,
Not in the MSP market.ANY market. Apply it to whatever you are in.
Go to the market to buy apples and get told that only a select group of private people may grant you permission to buy apples. THanks for stopping by but F off until you are in the "cool kids club".
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@Breffni-Potter said in Breaking up with Apple, Hello OnePlus 3:
As I said, they were a new-comer to the market, who initially were trying to get the right balance of distribution, supply and so on, so yes they throttled the demand intentionally so that for the customers they had, they could get the service right rather then guessing, launching badly and forever being tainted.
Throttling is understandable. But making it an exclusive club based on being friends with the right people instead of being an interested party is an affront to potential customers. That's not a good customer friendly means of throttling. It's exclusion through association and it's telling interested customers to F off. It means that the customers you get aren't because they are your best possible customers or most interested, it's random people who were lucky enough to be given your special access.
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Hypothetically.
I build a sound bar and want to throttle the locations and numbers of people who get to use it.
What would be a less F off way of doing it apart from referrals?
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Also, thinking about this.
Is there merit in getting people to recommend/talk about something brand new to their friends directly and so a referral/invite scheme encourages more of that to happen as you'd want your friends to get it before someone else does?
Taken from an old page on their site:
Good products are to be shared among family and friends - that's one of our core beliefs at OnePlus. As we currently have limited stock, we’re depending on OnePlus fans to spread the word organically.
As we scale up our operations, we want to reward our most loyal fans and friends who have helped us spread the word. We wanted to improve the experience. Instead of limited stock runs, we prefer to have people know for sure when they will be able to purchase their OnePlus One. If you receive an invite, it means that there is a OnePlus One waiting for you at our warehouse, ready to be shipped!https://forums.oneplus.net/threads/the-oneplus-invite-system-updated-may-9.1150/
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@Breffni-Potter said in Breaking up with Apple, Hello OnePlus 3:
Hypothetically.
I build a sound bar and want to throttle the locations and numbers of people who get to use it.
What would be a less F off way of doing it apart from referrals?
Oh crap.. you had to get a referral to be able to buy one originally? I agree with Scott that's crap! I hated Google and their Gmail shit for ages for this very reason. You had to be invited by someone who was already in the program. What makes your product so f'n cool?
Instead you should have an interest list. If you really want to make sure technical users get if first, then you include a questionnaire with the interest list submission and say, we'll get back to you.
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@Dashrender said
What makes your product so f'n cool?
And yet how many people use Gmail worldwide now?
Long term, did it do more harm or good to the product?
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The referral to sign up process is nothing new and is a proven method to control expansion.
@Dashrender has no right to complain when he used the invite system with NextDoor.
GoogleVoice used to be invite, etc.
@scottalanmiller is way off on this one. Just because he does not like it does not negate it.
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Spotify was invite only originally as well. Didn't do them any harm either.
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@JaredBusch said in Breaking up with Apple, Hello OnePlus 3:
The referral to sign up process is nothing new and is a proven method to control expansion.
@Dashrender has no right to complain when he used the invite system with NextDoor.
Sure I used the invite system, but if you found it on your own, you weren't prevented from signing up. NextDoor is completely different.
At this point I can't recall if Google Offered a notification when it became generally available or not.
It's one thing to use an invite only approach when the product is new, but after the first model you still have to resort to invitation only people, you're just missing a lot of opportunity. When the second gen came out, they should have enabled an interest/future notification list, not just had an invitation only approach.
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@Breffni-Potter said in Breaking up with Apple, Hello OnePlus 3:
@Dashrender said
What makes your product so f'n cool?
And yet how many people use Gmail worldwide now?
Long term, did it do more harm or good to the product?
You're talking more than 5 years ago now. I bet it lead to slower adoption than was needed - if they didn't have an interest sign up list, I just can't recall if they did or not.
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@Dashrender - But how does it hurt them as a commercial company? How many start-up products fall flat on their face because they commit to more then they can handle at the start?
A lot of companies have had success with this model, why is it a bad thing long term to have a closed process at the start?
