Tesla Motors was founded in 2003 by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning, after the maker of an electric concept car both men had test driven, the AC Propulsion tzero, turned down their pitch to put it into production. Elon Musk had driven the same car, got introduced to Eberhard and Tarpenning, and came in as an early investor and chairman. Eberhard ran the company as CEO through the Roadster's early years.
On July 19, 2006, Tesla unveiled the Roadster at a 350 person event inside a hangar at Santa Monica Airport. The guest list wasn't the public, it was pulled from the founders' own circle: investors, PayPal contacts, and a handful of widely known names including producer Richard Donner, actor Ed Begley Jr, businessman Michael Eisner, eBay's Jeff Skoll, and actor Bradley Whitford. Guests got a product demo and a ride along the tarmac, not a sales pitch.
A month later, Tesla opened the Signature One Hundred program: the first 100 production Roadsters, each requiring a $100,000 deposit and coming with a plaque in the cockpit personalized for the owner and signed by the company's founders. It sold out in three weeks. "Getting a Signature One Hundred Tesla Roadster provides entry into a very exclusive group," Eberhard said. "These early customers are pioneers, helping lay a foundation that will make electric cars possible for everyone."
The first Roadster was delivered in February 2008 to Musk himself, who was Tesla's chairman at the time, not yet its CEO. He took the CEO title in October 2008, after Eberhard left and the company ran through an interim CEO and then Ze'ev Drori. Tesla built roughly 500 more Roadsters through the first half of 2009, then expanded into Europe, selling 575 more there by October 2012. None of that first wave came from advertising. It came from a small, curated group of investors and widely known figures whose visibility did the selling before most people had ever seen the car on the road.
- Ran an invitation only unveiling instead of a public launch, with guests pulled from the founders' own investor and industry circles.
- Required a $100,000 deposit to join the Signature One Hundred Club, which sold out in three weeks.
- Personalized every Signature car with a plaque signed by the founders to reinforce the exclusive group framing.
- Let the visibility of prominent early owners generate press and conversation instead of paying for ads.