What a surprise when I found out that someone is selling PocketSmith beta invitations on eBay!
Actually this person is selling invitations to a dozen of web applications for a price tag of US$10 on average (Free shipping 
Well, if you are keen on giving a try to PocketSmith, we would be more than happy to send you an invitation FOR FREE (and for real!)
From this story, I would like to raise a few questions that come to my mind:
- Do you think this person is damaging PocketSmith’s reputation or on the contrary that his/her action is helping to promote our product?
- Do you consider this person as being clever or do you think he/she is being sneaky?
- Do you think startups should try to ‘control’ their image on Internet?
Please feel free to engage a conversation and give your opinion on this story 
Tags: beta invitations, ebay, promotion
Eww, as for me, that kind of person is damaging the reputation of Pocketsmith, people may think the invitation is very expensive to get, that’s why that guy is selling some. He’s making money from your website, and that’s nothing but fraud!
(I’m french and it’s 8 AM, sorry for my english
)
Personally, I think that the (very small amount of) exposure isn’t a terrible thing – and anyone who puts two and two together can find us and ask for an invite. However they are also pimping out other beta invites, so it isn’t like we are exclusive. I’d put money down that he just went and did a search for ‘private beta’ in Google, got the invites they could, and now put them up on eBay.
However I do think they are being a bit sneaky, through making money off of our application and our community.
We can only control so much of our image on the web – and this isn’t *exactly* damaging to our image, however as Palleas points out, it does mean that people could get the wrong impression about our beta invitation system, which is extremely open! I’d be keen to hear what others think – and as to whether we should be coming down with an iron fist on this clown
Thanks for the comments guys. (Merci Palleas
The weird part of this story is that this person has heaps of positive comments on eBay. It doesn’t seem that anybody complained about his activity. I wonder if other startups are award of this? If so, I believe they just take it as a promotional opportunity!
On the other hand, I completely agree with you Palleas, this sort of actions can damage the reputation of PocketSmith in the long term. I am actually thinking of adding a comment on the trade that would link to our website.
Thoughts?
I really don’t think that it harms your reputation, although it does certainly give the wrong impression regarding how you distribute invitations quite freely.
When Gmail started up (5 years ago now?) there were hundreds of invitations for sale on eBay. Some of the earliest sold for more than $100, but then the prices kept going lower and lower. My brother and I both got invitations for a few dollars each, and then he started selling invites for about $1 when he got them (not for the profit, but simply to up his eBay feedback).
I don’t think that the person is being sneaky, unless he e-mailed you and asked for the invitation and then turned around to sell it for $10.
that is absolutely hillarious! And Javob, I am sure that is exactly what he did. Otherwise he would have not been able to sell the invites confidently. Talk about a get rich quick scheme, hehe.
So did anyone actually buy the betainvite?