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Those in tech will be familiar with this term and others may be too. For those that have no idea what Private Beta means, we’ve taken some other (better) explanations and quoted from them.
We quoted the definition from this article as it explains it pretty well. Although we have somewhat of a hybrid model right now, we are in private beta. We had a lot more demand for the app than expected initially so we implemented the waitlist to allow users to secure their place for when we fully go live, just like the stock trading app RobinHood did for it’s initial launch, and still uses today to introduce new features.
Private Beta
A private Beta is a Beta that isn’t open to everyone. Don’t launch your service publicly in private Beta — make it invite-only.
A private Beta allows you to:
- Have more control over the type of user that gets to use the Beta service
- Restrict the volume of transactions that go through the Beta service
- Start small and get quick feedback before releasing the service out to a wider audience.
Why is launching in private beta necessary?
I think one part of the reason closed-beta systems can be effective (when it comes to improving a product or service) is that participating in it becomes a privilege. Users in beta tests are a lot more engaged in the service and interested in its future development. By participating and being allowed in, you feel a sense of ownership that translates into perhaps more time spent trying all the end cases, thinking about what you like and don't like, finding concrete wishlist items for a service as opposed to having an immediate gut reaction: "This is easy to use" or "I hate it".
This is quoted from an answer on quora from 11 years ago, but it's still a great explanation of why we're “exclusive” and not “elitist”, we just need to make sure our product is stable, useful and also engaging enough before we let more people in.