Selecting beta users.
In the past start-ups often used a golden rule to select their beta users: first come first served (I’ve written a post about this before; see http://deram.net/2010/06/26/some-thoughts-on-riding-the-google-wave/ ). As more and more services are launching; it gets harder and harder to find good beta users. Recently there are some initiatives like http://launchrock.com/ to solve this problem. I believe that you should have a mixture of beta users: people who spread the word, people who give feedback and some hardcore users. If you would like to attract these mixed profiles, your selection methods to find/select beta users should be adjusted. You can use launchrock to find the people that spread the word but you can also provide a blank space (before your launch) where people can indicate what they expect from your start-up. Based on this you can find the users that are good at giving feedback on the concept and can influence your roadmap. So consider the criteria that you want to use to select your (first) beta users; the first come first served principle is not applicable anymore if you have a lot of requests (hey, you can be picky!).
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