

Ask HN: How did you get early beata testers (Non Friends and Family)? - KleinmanB

I finished my MVP and have had friends and family test it.  Unfortunately you dont always get the most honest answers from F+F.  How have people gone about soliciting early testers outside of their social circle?
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kirillzubovsky
Search for sites like <http://betali.st> and put up your splash screenshot.
People who are interested would check it out and try the product.

Post facebook/twitter messages to your followers and ask them to try. Better
yet, find some twitter hot-shots who might be interested in your product and
send them a tweet. Sure most will ignore you, but if 1/10 tries it out, you've
got another power beta user.

Lastly, take a look at my post here ([http://www.geekatsea.com/what-google-
must-learn-from-my-fail...](http://www.geekatsea.com/what-google-must-learn-
from-my-failed-startup)), will give you some ideas as to what beta users say
vs. what they mean.

Good luck!

~~~
kevinchen
…and then after you get one of those "hot-shots" testing your product, create
an artificial scarcity by doling out beta invitations slowly. [Of course, this
will only work if you set up some kind of website with pretty / cool-looking
screenshots.]

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wisty
You can advertise. Say, $1-$5 per click (I'm not an expert). It won't really
pay off (in terms of value per user), but it will give you feedback.

It won't scale as well as word-of-mouth / viral adoption, but that's a
premature optimization issue.

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coryl
You cold call them. You find people in forums, communities, etc. who have
complained about the problem your solving, or are active powerusers in the
industry, and you message them. You tell them, "hey, I read in your blog that
you were having trouble with X, I'm working on a solution. Can I email you to
ask about your experience with [1][2][3]?"

Even better if you can skype interview with them. Best of luck.

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balajiviswanath
1\. Use launchrock to create a splash page with info of what your product does
and a signup form. 2\. Create your blog and write about your product & field.
Follow SEO best practices and put a sign up link in your blog. 3\. Run a
Google adwords campaign with a small budget. 4\. Go to startup events and
network with people who might be interested and point them to your launch
page.

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regularfry
Get out there and talk to your customers face-to-face. If it's something they
want, they'll bite your hand off to be on the beta, and you'll learn more
about what your product _should_ be by having a proper conversation than you
ever could over email.

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zbruhnke
if you're in a niche field (like alot of startups are) try searching for
forums etc. in that niche then try reaching out to users on those forums and
acquiring them as beta testers. I'm sure others on hacker news are alot like
me and would love to beta test a variety of products so posting it on here
would not be a bad idea either

