Actually, you can market before you've written a line of code. Ideally you've figured out some pain point that Instahero will solve, so why not pitch that? "X sucks, and we're doing something about it"
Write a sales letter. A great example can be found here: http://charmhq.com/ Start collecting email addresses, and send a lot of mail keeping everyone abreast of your progress.
My network is pitiful, yet I was able to get 300+ emails on my announcement list before launching. And when I flipped the switch, about 1/3rd of the list signed up within a day.
Can you please tell us about your product where you got 300 people on you pre-launch list? How you promoted it - simply through blogging? I"m doing pretty much the same thing right now and wondering how to attract people to my landing pages for my pre-launch product ideas.
These are amazing ideas, thanks. I was thinking that I could only do that after I've launched, but, as you say, there's really no reason to delay it. Especially with blogging, where I can still offer insight without having signups open.
Write a sales letter. A great example can be found here: http://charmhq.com/ Start collecting email addresses, and send a lot of mail keeping everyone abreast of your progress.
Blog a lot, either with product updates or educational posts about all things analytics. Check out http://greatemailcopy.tumblr.com/ and http://customer.io/blog, both of which are helping promote a non-released product.
My network is pitiful, yet I was able to get 300+ emails on my announcement list before launching. And when I flipped the switch, about 1/3rd of the list signed up within a day.