Where do you get early beta testers for your product?
Ankit Sharma
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Aaron O'Leary@aaronoleary
I'm actually curious about this also! I've mainly just used existing twitter audience but would love to hear what others have used to make a truly self sufficient beta hype machine similar to Clubhouse, Arc etc 😅
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@aaronoleary yes I have seen some stories about Twitter, Indiehackers and subreddits for beta users.
A giveaway on SaaSWarrior group! :)
That's a great question. As a person who had to go through the process of finding early beta testers for his project, I can say that it's not easy. I've used Twitter and Quora in the past, as well as Reddit. If you can get people interested in your product before they have to become beta testers, they are more likely to agree with you.
Launching soon!
There are loads of good Discord groups, reddits threads, Slack channels and even Rock groups where you can connect with builders, would definitely recommend looking into more resources in that front!
@nicolaas_spijker great suggestions. How did you build that discord group list? would love to learn more!
Launching soon!
@jaidayang I have used https://disboard.org in the past, communities range in quality but once you join a few good ones it opens up a pathway to finding the most active/valuable ones .
My suggestion to finding the high value communities once you join one of these groups: open a 1:1 with the most active users of the new communities and ask them for their thoughts on communities in your niche, very often they can extend an invite as well.
Besides that I have a few other routes I have taken to find communities on Discord and other places, feel free to connect with me through the links on my profile :).
Polywork is great for this!
@malenaohl Interesting! Did you partner with other brands or professionals? Thanks!
one of the hardest problems that I have yet to solve. great question!
Building Betalaunchpad.com for that. Excepting it to go live in a month.
Great topic!
@clementrog started a related discussion a few months ago with the following insights:
- Invest in content and distribution with a viewpoint
- Launch awareness campaigns on social (product tours, screenshots, call for beta testers)
- Reach out to a selected list of top ideal companies to ask for feedback
- Reach out to industry influencers to get visibility on podcasts, blog posts, etc.
At Specify, we're working on an upcoming product and recently explored opportunities with Polywork. We had great results: 30+ early beta testers in a few hours 👍
Hope it helps!
@clementrog @fmerian awesome thanks for your input, it really helps. Polywork is really awesome place for it.
If possible setup a booth or go onsite to have strangers really try out your product LIVE. This will give you good raw feedback.
@pasitobaki I Second this. Most effective path for raw feedback.
AppSumo is a great place for first users as they have a pretty responsive community as addition you can even get some profit from launch
Relevant communities in reddit and quora
For me it's always been a case of locking down and DM'ing key targets from Instagram and Twitter. You will end up in the "Requests" folders mostly but people do check and if they see they normally respond!
Keep the messages, personal but to the point.
Aim for 50 people.
"Hey Jude! Loved the work you did / content you created here!
We've worked super hard on a new app and really think you would find it useful!
Your thoughts however big or small would mean the world to us!"
Something like this usually works well! (Really do try and customise every message though as tempting as it is to copy paste)
Be incredibly grateful if they follow through of course and always ask if there's anything you can do for them.
Offering entry into a basic competition to win Amazon vouchers has also helped.
Put some good tunes on for a few hours and get Dming!
Good luck!
For wonderful interested people, have a Google form ready and always ask if they could share to anyone they know that might be interested.
Every person is a new door!
And major discount for life on the product. These people are enormously valuable in the early stages.
Launching soon!
You can try free platforms like Reddit, Quora, and Hacker News to find beta testers for your product. Some paid options are also available if you can spend some bucks.
My task now is to find beta-testers and Polywork really helps me!
There's a search in collaborations and u can find professionals open for beta-testing. And to text them all. We got about 30 good feedbacks from Polywork. Also you can create a post and describe your oportunity.
https://www.polywork.com/
I think the best way to find beta testers is on twitter. At least I have seen a lot of twitter users who do this.
@vkhoroshkov Can you briefly explain how please?
Publish your startup on beta-focused websites such as betalist.com, betabound.com, betafamily.com, etc.
Make a Reddit post. The Blue Label Labs team posted an essay describing how Reddit provided them with their first 1,000 users. This strategy ought to be especially effective if your product is a B2C.
Cold emails and messages don't work. One cold or "one-day promo" massage can lead to a ban/spam forever.
Consider "how to give first" rather than "where and how to promote." Every contribution can become a collaboration.
Facebook groups. AND PH - I think that Product Hunt is the best platform to search for beta testers. With its Ship (https://www.producthunt.com/ship) it shouts out loud "Come and validate your product" or "Come and find the very first users for your product!"