

Ask HN: How do you get beta users? - hackerolds


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benologist
You're solving a problem for people so start by thinking about what kind of
person has this problem - are they in a specific job or industry, are there
subreddits that overlap those people, maybe you can use facebook and google
ads to hook them, or twitter to reach them directly. Maybe you know some of
them personally. A small number of your ideal users can make great beta
testers and then customers.

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Rainymood
Agressive acquisition. I remember that Reddit had 0 users for a very long time
and the owners were just creating fake accounts making fake posts and acting
like it was populated... then suddenly people thought hey this is cool and
started joining in. Then they hit critical mass.

So, aggressive acquisition.

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tobinharris
Ask friends or existing customers.

Failing that, I create a marketing page with screenshots, explanation of why
it's cool, and a "register your interest for early access" form.

Then try and do some SEO so it appears in searches (Google Webmaster Tools
help me see if that's working).

