> […] when founders reach out to their initial 100 users, often that group is anything but representative of their potential future userbase. In fact, it’s usually the same limited sample size of friends, family, and the same group of early stage investors, journalists, and Product Hunters who jump on new products constantly. It would be great if that initial pool of users was just little bit deeper.
@mazzeo I'd be curious to hear more about your plans for diversifying that group of beta testers as I imagine people signing up for Lowercase Alpha are the same type of people browsing Product Hunt, TechCrunch, etc.
Something we're looking into at BetaList is working with media publications in different niches to distribute beta products to their audience. That way you can reach the end-user and gain actual customer insights rather than just feedback from your peers and startup enthusiasts.
Betaworks has something similar by the way called Openbeta: https://betaworks.com/openbeta/
I'd be curious to hear from @mayafish@borthwick if they have any insights to share with regards to how representative the user feedback is and what the best timing is to get a large group of beta testers involved.
@marckohlbrugge would love any ideas here. Right now part of the plan is to incorporate it into the conversation whenever we're talking to new and diverse audiences. We're a lean team so taking slow and open to experimenting.
@marckohlbrugge@mazzeo P.S. at BetaList we have an audience of a few 10,000 early adopters eager to try out beta products. If you're not familiar with it yet, you can think of it as Product Hunt for pre-launch startups. We previously featured startups like Pinterest, Shyp, IFTTT, About.me, Zapier, Mailbox, Fab, etc all before they launched.
How about we add some more Lowercase portfolio companies to that list? 😉
@mazzeo@marckohlbrugge This is something we worked with a lot of companies on as Signal Camp (http://www.signalcamp.com/). Just going through the thought exercise with founders of, who needs this product in their hands the most right now, will provide meaningful feedback and help spread the word at launch, frequently helped identify where to start looking.
It's good to get a mix of people who test lots of different things and those who don't. It takes time and effort but can indicate whether your product will stick. (For one niche, I recommend http://enlistmoms.com/)
@stvmcg not sure yet... Early user feedback always an interesting signal when there... Definitely better than nothing which is sometimes the case for our stage focus
I'm excited. @sacca@mazzeo. When will the first product roll through this? Have one in mind already or just gauging interest for this service?
Do you see this as a value-add for your investments? Seems like it'd be really competitive to say "oh ya, btw we have XXXX alpha testers ready for ya" to a startup.
@jsneedles got the first couple lined up... First should be out today or tmrw. Hopefully value add for founders and for us as we play with products we're considering diving into.
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@Mazzeo@jacksondahl I see this being pretty valuable - will all feedback be in the form of jam session text messages or will there be another channel or way for testers to submit their thoughts in a more detailed and well-thought-out manner?
@jasonkristofor For now, we're going super low friction/casual. You can just respond with bits of feedback via text, as you explore and use the app. we'll see what happens from there, but we're definitely going with the "we'll do it live" approach
This has to be the simplest sign up flow I've ever gone through. Congrats on the launch @Mazzeo@jacksondahl@sacca this is a great service to portfolio companies + early adopters 🙌
@nivo0o0 makes sense now. I got all excited for a second thinking I found a fellow St. Louisan!
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@Mazzeo I am actually intrigued by the Essential.to platform that powers this. Are they one of your portfolio companies? If so, would love to learn more.
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Hey, cool stuff... how can an app get on your Alpha list? possible beside your portfolio? @jacksondahl@mazzeo@sacca
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