Early traction with Beta List.

We have a product. It’s not quite ready. We wish to test it once it becomes usable. I want someone other than my mum to test it.

Sound familiar? As a 3 month old self coined “start-up” (buzz word alert) we’re well and truly on the user acquisition battlefield. But one of the thousand questions keeping me up at night was:

“How do I battle to get users when you can’t even “use” our product?”

Enter Beta List (www.betali.st). Beta List’s slogan “Discover tomorrow’s start-ups, today” sums it up perfectly, they showcase what’s happening in the world of start ups, specifically those going into Beta Testing, before you can use them.

I was referred to Beta List by a friend who is a frequent user of the service just because of the cool and upcoming products they uncover. From the outside, it is an ultra-modern hangout with a nice mix of users and providers. Some of the projects featured on there were simply brilliant, hell I signed up for six other services while submitting Everpresent. From code schools to peaceful protest aggregators it’s now a site I visit daily just because of the insane creativity shown by some of it’s contributors.

From the inside, the equation for Everpresent was to sign up 100 early users. Using Beta List we signed up 500.

All the time you read about the thousands upon thousands of users that XYZ Corp. managed to subscribe overnight. That is great, overly great I want to meet, buy a coffee for and chat with the founders of XYZ Corp. My question to them will be who was subscriber number 4? Have you chatted to subscriber 42, 301 and 500? Who are these saviors that liked what they saw so early and gave you their email address as a result? How did you get them? I want more stories of how the next Mark Zuckerburg got her or his first 500 sign ups.

Honestly get in touch with me (adam@huntsmanlabs.com) and tell me about your first 500. I’ll tell you everything about mine. then together we’d have 1000.

Such an important milestone, such validation that you’re moving in ‘kind of” the right direction but where are the stories?

Our story? Beta List.

I didn’t really want to let the secret slip. But what I do know is that if I’d had this ace up my sleeve in my past business adventures it would have saved me a shed load of time. So who am I not to spread the wealth?

Not to blow smoke up anyone’s arse (that’s Aussie slang for kissing ass) but Beta List kick started Everpresent. Simple. It has connected us with quality subscribers who are avidly interested in our project and who keep us honest. I get emails daily asking me all kinds of questions (some I don’t have answers to) and to hurry up and release already. To those people, the answers and release date are coming I promise!

Now I have a new motivation and responsibility to these early adopters and not just my business partners. Now I sleep just a little bit better at night.

We could never have done it without Beta List. It’s kind of like hanging out with the cool kids.

Check out Everpresent on Beta List http://betalist.com/startups/everpresent

Adam

http://betalist.com/

http://everpresentapp.com/