skim the milk: launch to the whales first

the play

Launch to the top of the market first, at a high price with a high bar to get in. The people below see who’s inside and want in too. Later you open a cheaper tier as its own launch.

Marketers call it price skimming: charge a high price to the buyers who want it most, then lower it to reach the price-sensitive ones.

what happened

company	the skim	what happened next
Uber	launched in San Francisco in 2010 as a black-car service. TechCrunch put a ride at one and a half to two times a cab fare	UberX, the lower-priced tier, launched in beta in July 2012 and opened to all SF riders in January 2013. two years at the top end first
Superhuman	invite-only email at $30 a month, with a human onboarding session for every user	it stayed premium. 180,000 people on the waitlist by June 2019, more than 275,000 by February 2020

The skim filled the cheap tier too. When Uber took UberX out of beta in San Francisco in January 2013, it said riders “who relied on premium cars for business travel and nights on the town also embraced a more affordable choice.”

why it works

lever	what it does
the price filters	the people who pay $30 a month for email have the problem badly. they’re the users worth learning from
scarcity pulls	a door you can’t walk through yet is something people talk about. Superhuman’s waitlist kept growing while it stayed invite-only
the top sets the taste	people copy the users they look up to. once the whales use it, the rest of the market follows them in
margin pays for hand-holding	a premium price funds a human per user. Superhuman’s head of growth says he personally onboarded hundreds of customers before hiring the first onboarding specialist
the cheap tier is a second launch	UberX gave Uber a fresh story two years in

from my calls

attitude is the biggest way to create a pull rather than you have to go and push in sales.

it’s called skimming the milk strategy.

The way I tell the Uber story: send the Rolls Royce first. The Toyota can come two years later.

A DeFi lending team asked me how to launch. What I told them:

move	why
the landing page says only who it’s for: holders above a high onchain threshold	the bar is the pitch. people check whether they qualify
no product explainer on the page. demos in person only	the whales get a conversation with you
go after 50 to 100 whales before thousands of small users	a handful of big holders moves the volume, and they bring the next ones
find them on public leaderboards and wallets linked to X, then DM them	onchain data already tells you who they are
never quote a small waitlist	”don’t say i got 50 wait list.” a small number kills the pull

cost vs payoff

	what
cost	fewer users at the start. you turn most of the market away on purpose
cost	founder time on demos, calls and onboarding by hand
payoff	real revenue per user from day one
payoff	a waitlist that grows while you stay closed. Superhuman went from 180,000 to more than 275,000 in about eight months
payoff	a ready-made story when the cheaper tier opens

how to steal it

	crypto app	consumer app
who first	wallets above a high balance or volume threshold	people already paying for the premium option in your category
the gate	qualify onchain to get in, with the threshold on the landing page	invite-only, at a high monthly price
where to find them	public leaderboards, top holder lists, wallets linked to X	power users of the incumbent, paid communities
how to sell	DM, then a demo in person or on a call	a 1:1 onboarding call
when to widen	once the whales use it weekly and others ask to get in	once the waitlist is bigger than you can onboard by hand

Run it like this:

Write down the 50 to 100 people or wallets you want first.
Put the bar on the landing page and leave the explainer for the call.
DM them yourself and demo 1:1.
Decide upfront what triggers the cheaper tier, and launch it as its own event.

watch-outs

watch-out	what to do
a small public number kills the pull	keep the waitlist count private until it’s big
scarcity with nothing behind it	the whales have to actually use it. track their weekly activity
a few whales carry the volume	if two of them leave, your chart drops. track how concentrated usage is
staying premium too long	set the trigger for the cheaper tier before you launch. Uber took two years
whales split into many wallets (crypto)	check the threshold against linked wallets and a real person behind them