Releasing early, what other steps can I take?

400 signups mean there's demand for your product. Here's some things that will get the word out far and wide. Not all are free.

1. Do something outrageous as a marketing stunt... I don't know what works in your niche, but do something newsworthy and let the world know that you're doing it (see number 2). Announce that you'll be giving your app away free for the first 72 hours after launch, give all the profits for the first month to a named worthy charity. Tell the world you're doing something unexpected (in addition to telling them you're releasing a new product) and you'll get free press worth way more than you give up by your stunt.

2. A well written (do some reading on format) and widely distributed press release about a new software release always generates lots of traffic to our site. We use prweb -- that will set you back a few bucks. All the main news outlets monitor press releases so it's well worth the cost. If there is 0 marketing budget, search on free press releases for sites where you can submit your release for free. You can also submit your press release to industry news sites directly at no cost.

3. Use your 400 name mailing list to run a 'tell a friend' promotion. Offer them some very significant launch day discount (free?) if they copy you on an email to 10 friends telling them about your upcoming release.

4. Quit being anonymous! Two weeks to launch means it's way past time to self promote everywhere you spend time. For instance, if you'd included a link with your question you'd have generated significant traffic from this post alone.

5. As soon as you release, submit your app to all the major software download sites (Google for a list). A few visits per week from each site can add up quickly to hundreds of visits.

If you even get just 200 people to initially start to test it, that should start to give you some feedback, but, you will want to make certain that you have a good way to get feedback from hopefully at least 1/4 of the initial users.

Now, 50 people may not sound like much, but, if you can wow them, not with your application, but with your great response to any problems or some interesting new features, then some of them will begin to tell their friends about it, over various social networks.

If you find that the initial users are not talking about it, in a positive way, then that should send warnings that you have a major problem.

I would be careful not to have too many people initially, and it sounds like you have a decent number, to see how the first reactions are, just try to follow up.

If you had 2000 people testing it, then it would be hard to try to follow up with the majority of them, for example.

You shouldn't have to introduce much more, if you can't get people talking about it, then whatever you try to do is doomed, I believe.