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Ask HN: How to find people willing to test side projects?

13 points by arabello ↗ HN
I'd love to receive open feedback on my side projects from tech individuals without incurring significant costs, aside from my family, friends, or colleagues.

Are there communities willing to try out digital products and tech tools without making explicit commitments?

10 comments

[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 208 ms ] thread
maxbaines
Perhaps post some details here? As Show HN.
mcsniff
The fact that you don't realize you can post here, in this very community, really should give some pause.
arabello
Hi, thanks for pointing it out. I know for sure HN is the right place and I already used the "Show HN" format in the past. Unfortunately, it is the only place I know: I am more interested in knowing some others or maybe this use-case specific communities
The_Colonel
1) build something which could be interesting to other people

2) make threshold to test the product and post feedback low (e. g. GitHub)

3) promote it on HN, reddit, producthunt...

4) people will test and some will report bugs / submit ideas etc.

solardev
There's Uservoice and Mechanical Turk too, if you want a more general audience
muzani
Who's the target market? You should be able to find a persona of someone interested in it. Even if you built it for yourself, you should be able to make a persona that's a fragment of yourself, e.g. Jay who puts all his MMO stuff on spreadsheets and wants to migrate his sheets to a wiki.

Where do they hang out? That's probably a good place to start.

hiidrew
Would try to target communities that align with your target audience - Twitter, Subreddits, Facebook groups, or Discord. Can also promote more generally on some of these platforms or ProductHunt

Another method, guerilla testing, worked well in grad school. Go to a public place - a library, coffee shop, etc. Politely ask random people to test your project. The obvious downside is they may not fit your target audience, but it's a cheap and scrappy way to get some feedback.

Kirtirajsinh
Look out for Communities on Discord, telegram with whom your product aligns.
polygot
What would you like to have tested? I might have time to provide some feedback.