testing, beta-testingAfter just creating the world’s greatest product. How on earth do I test it? I’ve been testing in house with people who have developed the product but should I hire testers? Quality Control Experts? ETC? Hold a private beta? Public Beta?
What should I do?
Get your product out there.
It’s important that you make your target audience aware that your product exists and get it into their hands, if possible.
If your product is hardware with limited quantities or software that might have trouble scaling, it might be a good idea to start with a private beta (or, for hardware, a limited outside testing group, like the first 500 registrants or something like that) and try to generate buzz.
If it’s software that won’t have scaling issues, a public beta might be the best place to start so that you can get the largest testing group possible to report bugs, give feedback, and spread the word.
If it’s hardware and you’re not concerned with the amount of inventory you have, you should try to get it into as many hands as possible to report defects and get a large array of testing scenarios.
Maybe this advice is too late, but make sure you test your product before you finish it. There is no way to tell if you have the world greatest product if it hasn’t been in the (virtual?) hands of your customers yet.
It would be good to know what type of product you have built. That being said, there are a number of ways you can test your product:
Online Products or Services
Newsletters: you could setup a teaser page with a newsletter signup form. If people sign up for the newsletter and forward it to their friends, you might be on to something. (Social media might serve a similar purpose).
Advertisements: with a low budget on search engine advertisement, you can quickly test if people actually look for the solution you are providing. Combine this with the newsletters to hook people to your product early.
Beta Products: get your product out to services like http://betalist.com or http://producthunt.com to see if people will actually sign up.
Release early, release often: this is the only way to see if your customers are willing to pay for your product. Get it in their hands, make them pay real money for it, and gather their feedback on every occasion. Again, social media might help in the feedback gathering process.
Testing Firms: software testing firms can validate the quality of the product in terms of whether they follow the specifications. Using a ‘release often’ process can be augmented with formal testing. Depending on your budget you can do exploratory testing yourself, or hire QA employees or a QA firm to do the testing for you.
Physical Products
This is where it get’s a little bit tricky…
Proof of Concept: jury rig your product, 3D print it, or make a few manual samples to ask your friends and family to use it.
Crowdfunding: you could set up a crowdfunding campaign to see if the production process scales and the product can be mass-produced. This could also provide funding to do some formal testing.
Compliance testing: for some type of products, like electrical equipment, you need compliance testing for safety and regulations. Usually you can’t do these tests yourself since you need dedicated labs to do so.
I am going to assume that you don’t need testing for software defects as that is easily done.
You need to test it to validate your idea, you need customers.
So my suggestion, go and sell it. Initially do one on one sales, don’t go the whole try to advertise to as many people as possible, that is for more well established start-ups with time to spend on marketing.
If you don’t know how to sell one on one, get learning :)
If people don’t end up buying, either you need to improve your product or your sales skills.
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