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MacLain Christie

How are you getting testers for your product?

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Recruiting quality testers for your product isn't always that easy. If you already have a strong network within your target market, then all you have to do is tweet something. Now you've got 100+ people knocking at your door. But what if you don't have that? Maybe you could: - Post to an online group where your target users hang out (Reddit, FB etc) - Direct message people who are posting online about the problem you can solve - Create and share content that brings attention to what you're working on - Start networking from scratch. Make connections, build relationships, and eventually find introductions to testers in your target market. - Take out an ad in Craigslist or pay people on mTurk to test for you. All of these can be effective. But, they also have tradeoffs and risks. - some are slow - some take a lot of time investment - some can bring too much attention before you're ready - some can hurt your reputation if people don't like you posting or contacting them, etc. This can make getting testers even harder for product makers. What has your experience been like? How are you getting people to test your product?

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Jeanette Järnstedt
What a great topic! I see it as a triangle. You have fast recruitment, not using any money, and good quality users and you can only pick two of these. Finding users to test with and not putting in time or money to the search will most likely affect the quality of the users. As you mentioned that you're looking for users that have a fit for the product, I'd say it might need a little time investment and it can be slow first. But it will pay off! My favorite recruiting methods: - Existing users Create a popup, email, send messages, or whatever works in your context to recruit the ones already interested in your product. - Sales So you've done your research and targeted sales to great prospects that would find your product useful. If the selling is not working, why not ask if they'd be interested in participating in some usability tests. This really really depends on the product and context, def not good for every situation. - Guerilla In covid time this has been a bit more difficult, but it can be very rewarding and doesn't take a lot of time. Where do your target users spend their time? Go there and ask people for a few-minute quick test. Bring snacks and a great attitude. - Targeted ads This needs a bit of investment but can be really powerful for creating a user testing pool.
MacLain Christie
Thanks @jeanettej, I appreciate you sharing what's worked for you. I know many founders are sitting with little time and little money. So of course fast and free becomes priority. But like you said, there's tradeoffs to that. I think what you said can give founders in this situation a grounded and productive way to think about it!
Alina Ihnatiuk
Our team is testing the product with the help of friends and acquaintances.
We have been warming up ours for sometime but haven't actually recruited them as yet. I'm sure we'll go through all of these pain points!
Ayaz Karimov
We have some actions to find the people: - to send the email to the 10% of people in our newsletter; - to post in the social media channels; - to post in the Facebook/ Slack groups - to tell people that we will choose randomly one person, and give the gift