In limbo after beta testing

[majesticbeans]

This is my first venture. I got a bunch of beta testers, bettered my product,and have rolled out with something slicker, faster and smarter. People like it.

What should be my goal now? Enroll more beta users until I feel I've built a solid enough foundation to open registration for everyone?

Furthermore, my beta testers were sourced organically. (word of mouth, phone calls, personal contacts) I've definitely hit my limit (surprisingly large!) in that respect, and I'm wondering what you would do if you had to take the next step to break from beta 1 to beta 2.

I'm ready for more action, I just need someone to point me in the right direction. I know I'm about to enter the realm of marketing and to be honest I'm quite lost.

Gracias

[soneca]

I think you should start to charge money for your product. If you didn't promess your beta testers a "forever free" product, you should start with them. I saw you said that people answered that "yes", they would pay. That is not enough, they must actually pay for it, real money. If you think that wouldn't be nice to charge your beta testers, so the next step is two steps at once: test marketing channels and pricing.

You must know if you have a business, so you must learn if and how much people will pay and find out how are you going to find your customers. Marketing is not a monster, just enumerate all possible channels (online: Adwords, Facebook Ads, SEO, Twitter, LinkedIn, content marketing, Pinterest, Press, etc. - offline: seminars, the obvious or weird strategies on http://fiverr.com/categories/advertising, conferences, etc.). Don't try to be a visionary marketeer, just test every channel on small scale and see what works.

Oh, and you should read last PG essay: http://paulgraham.com/ds.html

[ArekDymalski]

Just few quick, (hopefully) thought-provoking questions: 1. Is this a business or a hobby project? 2. Do you really need Beta 2? 3. Do people like it enough to pay (assuming it's a business)?

Without any info about your product/users/market it's quite hard to give you anything more precise.

[majesticbeans]

I figured. You'd be surprised how your reply still provided me great stuff to work with. It's what I was aiming for, actually.

It's a business. Not sure if I need a beta 2, how can I tell? My market is small, but I'm doing this to see if I can start and run a successful business. As for willingness to pay, I've asked most them personally or by survey and most of them have said YES.

[ArekDymalski]

Glad I could help - I strongly believe that often the best answers are already between asker's ears :) Regarding the beta I guess that if your product is already working properly you can drop this label. IMHO "beta" used to be a nice way to inform the users that they can expect some bugs in a work in progress. But with a popularization of the Lean approach and with availability of A/B testing tools, there's no need to call self a "beta". Someone once said "Don't build a startup, build a business". I think "beta" badge is one of the things that distinguishes one from another.

[majesticbeans]

Totally taking your advice on that. I just assumed that to be the status quo, but I can't believe I never realized that it really cuts into the sense of continuity I want my business to have.