r/startups on Reddit: How do you get beta testers?

TLDR; used a marketing agency’s network of contacts Not an easy process lots of trial and error. Producthunt and Betalist were a waste of time. Personal connections only reached so far for me, plus my personal network doesn’t accurately reflect my target audience. I tried FB and IG ads, offering incentives but response was poor (due to trust, or lack of). Tried organically building trust in local FB groups but the groups that allow “advertising” are like the Wild West. I managed to get over 100 testers in the end through my marketing agency’s connections. That said, fought so hard to get there and the quality of the feedback was massively underwhelming. We offered payment for completed surveys. Our first run we got a lot of skipped responses, clearly just whizzing through it. So we clarified what steps they needed to take with the app before completing the survey. Feedback was great, stellar reviews. When we queried the lack of any negative feedback with our super users who owned sub groups of testers, they said it was because testers were worried they wouldn’t get paid if they were honest. Last round they completely trashed it - not even sure whether they were just frustrated or finally being honest. Ultimately still worthwhile because the useful feedback we did manage to pick out underscored that the issues we have as the product team are worth us fixing before launch (yes, I’m well aware this may be confirmation bias but hey ho). Sorry, bit of a rambling response but sharing as maybe something useful in there. More on reddit.com