I'm Here.

• Friend: Say you got an invitation to [website], but that invite expired or got used before you clicked on the link. You get served to a page that says oops that link is invalid.
• Friend: Do you think its awful to have a sign up thing there? What is the correct thing to have them do?
• Me: Well.
• Me: First -- does the link HAVE to expire?
• Friend: Well it's in the case that the invite has been used already... so, expired or somebody else redeemed it. That doesnt matter.
• Me: So they're a new / referred customer but the link is dead. And it needs to keep them from being like, "eff this, goodbye."
• Me: How about it doesn't even show an error...
• Friend: I asked that, and then they were like what's the point of invites if we just let everybody in
• Me: ...and just plain is like, "welcome aboard! you're just [x] steps away from [great {things}...]. Please enter your email address to get started."
• Me: nobody wants to see an error. nobody cares about seeing an error, they just want to feel like they are getting in.
• Me: So just usher them through and get whatever info you need without them knowing there was any sort of error.
• Friend: hmmm. So apparently there can be two error cases.
• Friend: 1. A person forwards the invite email to multiple people. Say 3 people click. Only one will get in. What do the other two see?
• Friend: 2. A person that has already signed up clicks the invite link again because they forgot. Ugh. What a pickle.
• Me: You ask for their email address. in 1's case, that will usher them in, no problem. In 2's case, you can set up an alert that says, "we already have that email address on file. Forgot your password?"
• Friend: hmm I like that.
• Friend: ...we can't let them [1] in. I think when we move to invite only there will only be a 48 hour window when people wont be members. If you sign up organically there will only be 48 hour wait.
• Me: Is there a place to urge people not to send a referral link to bajillions of friends because it won't work that way?
• Friend: right now we have the referral link but we are leaving that behind to move to invite only. Each person will have 3 invites.
• Me: Otherwise just some kind of, "It looks like someone else has used this referral link. Please sign up here and we'll get you in by [day]."
• Me: And a "don't worry!" somewhere in there.