The beta form logged 1,153 submissions in six days.
It was a short form. We asked for an email address, an Instagram handle, and a mailing address. The last field told people to refer friends if they wanted to get stickers faster.
One hundred forms arrived the first day. The next day brought 470. Then 279, 167, 90, and another 47.
This was happening while Apply was already live and taking real orders. We had spent the year designing products, building the store, figuring out packaging, and getting all the accounts connected. Now people were raising their hands quickly enough to create a different kind of problem.
My inbox became a running counter. Typeform sent a new-response notice. Many of those responses also produced a support-assignment notice. The subject lines were nearly identical, and they kept arriving all weekend.
The useful version was the export. The file had one row for every submission and the exact fields we needed for the beta. We also built a master beta-program email list so the responses were somewhere other than a wall of notifications.
The public version of this week looked much better. I had a photo of myself in an absurd orange safety jacket, orange hat, and black mask. The caption said I was one of the Apply cofounders and added, “I really like orange.” That part was also accurate.
The private version was a CSV full of addresses.
The beta was not an abstract audience number. These were people who had given us a way to contact them and a place where we could send the product. They had also been asked to bring their friends into the line.
The form added 47 more submissions on the sixth day. The notifications were still arriving.