When would be best to start our private beta?

Question

Proposal: Computer Graphics

Obviously we can't start our private beta until we have 40 questions at 10 upvotes each. However, once we achieve that, do any of you have a preferred time of year for starting our private beta? Our previous private beta didn't gather enough pace and several people pointed out that starting it during the summer holidays put us at a disadvantage.

Stack Exchange staff can't bring our next private beta forward, but they may be open to delaying it once we have the required number of questions. If the community indicates a given month as unsuitable for a large proportion of us, the private beta can be put back to the following month.

How do you feel about the idea of delaying to avoid a slow period such as the summer holidays? Which times of year would you most like to avoid, to give us the most people available to make the best impression?

Answer 1

There are multiple problems with this idea. The two biggest ones are

1. There is a Commitment phase between definition and beta launch, you have ignored a third of the process.

2. You need 200 people to commit to to the proposal, before the proposal moves to Beta, each of those people can only commit to THREE (3) proposals at time.

Once a proposal has launched a persons commitment is locked until released by the passage of time or fulfillment of (10 Questions and/or Answers).

I recently ran across a post by Robert on the currency of commitments, that may help you understand why locking commitments for a site who's launch was postponed would be bad, and if you did not lock them, you would soon lose your 200 committers and you would doom your proposal to failure.

Here are three other posts by Robert that talk about the SE/Area51 commitment concept 1, 2, 3

IF you get a beta launch window, you need to launch when the commitment is there. Delay is fatal.