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My site just went into Beta release last week. I am at the point where I would like to get a certain number of Beta users on the site so that I can get more feedback. Right now I have people using the site who are people I know and potential customers, but I would like to grow that to a larger population. Any suggestions on how to approach this?

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How many beta testers do you have now? – alphadogg Dec 1 '10 at 21:49
Currently, I have around 20 Beta testers (or early adopters). I am still implementing more key features to the site. Once that is done I plan to heavily market the site using a planned strategy I have been working on for a while. I am thinking that once I get the word out through online mediums and traditional marketing via news print and door-to-door that I will generate significantly more amount of traffic and get more Beta requests. – John Dec 2 '10 at 22:51

3 Answers

up vote 12 down vote

A year ago launched my first product - it's a downloadable utility for the Windows platform. What I did to get beta testers is:

  1. Found tech (and semi-tech) discussion forums.

  2. Contact the owners of the forums telling them that you are new and looking for beta testers and ask them for permission to post something on their forums to get beta testers. In my case I gave all beta testers a free license to the product.

  3. Most forum owners accepted.

  4. Then found software reviewers that had a blog. A couple accepted to mention the beta.

  5. Created a form on the website where those interested can submit their email address.

  6. I ended up with hundreds of beta testers.

  7. When product was released I also gave these beta testers a number of 50% discount coupons that they can give to friends - many testers used them.

In my case it was a software application. In your case it's obviously different.

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up vote 3 down vote

I asked a similar question on the Programmers site, without much luck. You can, however, take a look at Joel Spolsky's Top Twelve Tips for Running a Beta Test for advice on how to actually run the beta. Also, I found this article mentioning several sites that might be useful in getting feedback for your project.

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up vote 1 down vote

Your users must have friends. You could add a simple invite system. Let your users sell your product for you. If they love it, they will promote it.

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