The lure of exclusivity

I've built a number of private online communities over the years and have experimented with language around exclusivity and scarcity enough to know that it works well to draw interest where it was previously difficult to get people to pay attention.<p>I've often wondered why more startups don't try to build some sense of exclusivity to the sign-up process. Everyone is so focused on removing the barriers to sign-up and getting the user to improve their vanity metrics. Getting quality users by creating barriers to entry can be a tactic as well...

Such a simple idea but I'm looking forward to see how it goes ( I have signed up ).<p>One feedback though. You brand this as something exclusive ( only 11K people ) but in the "Welcome mail" after I signed up you ask me to share it with my friends... Isn't that counter intuitive? If I want to be "selected" the less competition there is, the better so I shouldn't share it.

Perhaps topically relevant:<p>- <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veblen_good" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veblen_good</a><p>- <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positional_good" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positional_good</a>

<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scarcity_value" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scarcity_value</a><p>"Tom said to himself that it was not such a hollow world, after all. He had discovered a great law of human action, without knowing it -- namely, that in order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to attain."

Would be interested to hear some product insight on how you guys think the 11kclub product compares with "Lily Cole's Impossible".

I tried signing up but I got this error: "a general error has occurred"

Interesting - anyone got the link to the original HN discussion?

The whole reason this is stupid is you are just trying to prove a point that has been well established. Facebook has proven exclusivity works already, we don't need clones just to prove the same well known thing over and over. Why don't I start the 5,20,100k club to see if this effect works at different levels! Because who cares! Solve a problem, build something useful, not just because.

This is such a dumb idea it blows my mind. Create something useful.