Ask HN: Free beta or no free beta? MVP or wait for full release? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Free beta or no free beta? MVP or wait for full release?

2 pointsmcrittenden3 comments

I'm nearing a ready-to-release state for a web app I've been working on, but this is my first startup and I'm not really sure how to proceed.

Should I offer a free beta period to build up a user base, or should I just go with a 30-day free trial and then start charging? Should I release a MVP (that I have ready now) or should I wait a few more weeks until the remaining features I have in mind are fleshed out?

I know this is a vague question, I guess what I'm really wondering is if there is an accepted procedure for initially releasing, or if The Right Thing varies greatly from company to company/niche to niche?

If it matters, the product is a time tracking/task tracking/invoicing app for freelancers, so needless to say, it's a very saturated market already.

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Why did you build a new product in a saturated market? If it was because none were the right fit for you, might you be able to find the other like-you users in one place to approach? It happens on HN all the time with Review My Site requests...

But the real question is whether you are looking for strategic feedback on the app from these early users or if you are concerned that it is buggy and won't be charge-worthy initially. Can you elaborate?

Yeah, I built it because no others worked the way I wanted them to. With that in mind, I wouldn't mind if nobody ever signed up for it, but I'd like to give it a good shot and see if there's interest.

As for finding other like-me users, I'm not sure...it's specifically built for single-person devs and at this point doesn't allow multiple users per account, so I suppose any number of freelance forums or communities would be good places to start (freelanceswitch.com comes to mind).

To answer your last question, I'm more looking for strategic feedback - I'd love to get a few testers to tell me if they would use it and if not, why not. And I'm sure that a couple bugs will be exposed in the process.

I would suggest limiting the number of users and calling it beta. That way you can be in close contact with these users and actually pull out their feedback. I would release a simple MVP--one that is useful to you. Not much more. Beware that users make great editors but poor creators.

Get to charging quickly. Once you charge $1, you will treat the project as a commercial endeavor--it will fight for your attention over other work and it is incredibly rewarding.

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