How to get the first users for a new software product

Do not start by trying to reach everyone

The instinct with a new product is to tell as many people as possible: post everywhere, launch publicly, hope something sticks. At the very start, that is rarely the best use of effort. Broad announcements reach lots of people who don’t have the problem, and the few who do get a generic message that doesn’t speak to them.

Your first users are not a marketing target. They are partners in a test. You need a small number of the right people, not a large number of anyone.

Define the exact first-user profile

Describe your first user as precisely as you can. Not “small businesses”, but “an independent café or gift shop that already sells something to bring customers back”. Not “job seekers”, but “someone actively applying for roles who is unsure which are a good fit”.

A useful profile answers:

• Who has the problem most acutely?
• What are they doing about it today?
• Where do they already spend time, online and offline?
• What would make them willing to try something new?

If your profile came from talking to people about the problem, you will often already know some of them by name.

Start where trust already exists

People are far more willing to try an unfinished product from someone they know or have been introduced to. Start with your existing networks: former colleagues, local groups, communities you already belong to, and people you spoke to while researching the problem.

The aim is not to ask friends to be polite about your product. It is to ask them who they know who has the problem.

Find small communities around the problem

Most problems have communities around them: forums, local groups, newsletters, trade associations, support groups, meetups. These are often small, and that is a good thing. A small, focused community where everyone has the problem is worth more than a large general audience.

Take part before you ask for anything. Answer questions, share what you are learning and be open about what you are building. When you do ask for testers, people will know who you are.

Local communities count too. A product that benefits from face-to-face feedback — anything involving older adults or high-street businesses, for example — can be much easier to test with people nearby.

Ask for a test, not a sale

“Would you like to buy this?” is a hard question to say yes to for an unfinished product. “Would you try this for a couple of weeks and tell me what works and what doesn’t?” is much easier.

Be honest about the stage the product is at. Calling it a pilot, beta or early version sets the right expectations, and many people enjoy helping to shape something new. Make it clear what you are asking for and how much of their time it will take.

Make participation easy

Every extra step between someone agreeing to help and actually using the product loses people. Remove what you can:

• set up accounts or data for them if that is the hard part
• offer to walk them through the first use
• keep forms short and ask only what you need
• make it obvious how to get in touch when something goes wrong

Watch users use the product

Whenever you can, watch someone use the product — in person or on a call. You will see confusion, hesitation and workarounds that people would never think to mention in feedback. A short session with one user can be more useful than a survey of many.

Resist the urge to help or explain. If you need to explain, the product needs to change.

Follow up quickly

Early users are doing you a favour, and their interest fades fast. Follow up within days, not weeks. Ask specific questions about what they did, rather than “any feedback?”, which usually gets a polite non-answer.

Turn useful feedback into visible improvements

When you change something because of an early user’s feedback, tell them. Few things build goodwill faster than seeing your suggestion appear in a product. It also encourages people to keep giving honest feedback, because they can see it matters.

That doesn’t mean building every request. It means taking every piece of feedback seriously, looking for patterns, and making the smallest change that addresses them.

Ask good early users for introductions

Once a user is getting value from the product, they are your best source of the next users. People with a problem tend to know others with the same problem. A simple “do you know anyone else who might find this useful?” can open more doors than any amount of posting.

How Incyworks finds early users

Incyworks products are at different stages, and each looks for early users in a way that suits its stage:

• Daily View is recruiting a small group of pilot users in and around Bath, where feedback from older adults and their families can be gathered in person.
• Role CV is open as a live beta, and the focus is on observing how people use the assessment and whether they return for further roles.
• Proper Treat plans to test a working version with a small group of independent businesses.

Progress on these experiments is shared in A Bit Gamey(opens in the same tab, external site), the Incyworks founder’s newsletter.