Don't Sleep on LinkedIn for Growth. How We Got our First 189 Beta Testers.
If you build it, they will... "meh."
TL;DR: We onboarded 189 beta testers for free using LinkedIn jobs.
After building our MVP in just 48 hours, my co-founder and I were pretty stoked. While we had talked through our growth strategy, the first thing we needed were beta testers, with a goal of converting those testers into active users.
Shipping is easy; growth is hard.
“You should tap your network—reach out to friends, family, even strangers.” After sharing our new SaaS with ~80 people, we netted one signup. Thanks, Mom.
Here’s the thing... most people, even those close to you, don’t care. They may check out your landing page (“That’s cool”), but most won’t take the next step.
I’m fairly active on LinkedIn—not an influencer by any means—so we decided to develop a growth strategy there.
We went from ZERO to 189 beta testers in just four days.
Here’s how we did it:
LinkedIn Jobs
First, we created a LinkedIn company page and posted a job to recruit volunteer beta testers. Do this under your personal profile and then select the company page you created to post the job. Super easy, and the LinkedIn AI writing assistant will help with the job description.
Important: Make sure candidates understand that it’s a volunteer (unpaid) position. TIP: After posting your job description, LinkedIn gives you the opportunity to promote your job for free. Do this (don’t forget to cancel)! You’ll see 3x the applicants.
Capture Interest
When creating a job post, LinkedIn will give you two options for connecting with applicants:
- Email or
- Send them to a link.
Since we’re building an online form builder, we chose option 2 to use our own technology to gather the information we needed.
Some data we collected:
- Name,
- Email,
- Email opt-in,
- High-Level Experience,
- Acknowledgement of Volunteer Position,
- Consent to use feedback as a testimonial on our site.
TIP: Make it super easy; these folks will be spending their time testing your product.
Communication
Instead of communicating directly with the 189 applicants, we decided to use a newsletter. Our beta testers had opted in, and the assignment included testing of email signup and delivery.
Instructions were super simple, and we set clear expectations for how long the testing process should take.
Gathering Data
I won’t go into detail on crafting your feedback questions, but some simple form fields to capture feedback and open-ended questions worked best for us. We again used our own online form builder for this.
Our users were testing the creation of forms, sharing the forms, and providing their feedback—all using our platform. A great use case and opportunity to test the end-to-end experience. TIP: Use this as an opportunity to collect testimonials for your product.
Follow Up with Testers
After the testing deadline had passed (we were moving fast and could have allowed more time), we sent a follow-up communication thanking the testers and providing another opportunity for those who hadn’t tested yet. This netted another 20 responses.
We also offered to write a brief recommendation for the testers who completed the assignment. It was the least we could do to assist those looking to build experience and find employment.
While beta testers aren’t necessarily qualified leads, we’ve seen users sign up daily. Some of this is likely due to the forms (Powered by <Our Company>) that were created by our users during the testing.
Stats
Some closing stats:
- One job post on LinkedIn produced 248 apply clicks.
- 248 clicks turned into 220 beta tester applications.
- 220 applications resulted in 199 beta testers.
- 189 beta testers completed the assignment and provided feedback.
- 2% churn. It’s been two weeks, and we’ve retained most beta testers.
Hoping this helps others who are looking to get eyes on their product and gather user feedback.
Link to project: https://www.rocketform.io/
Link to job post mentioned: https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/3938870141
cool idea @JZillion! i'm amazed to see volunteer (unpaid) testers are welcomed via linkedin jobs!
Yeah, I wasn't aware either until browsing LI one day. It was a great way to get our product in the hands of testers and get their open & honest feedback.
Using LinkedIN to acquire beta testers is quite creative. Most would not even consider that source as a strategy to consider! Thanks for sharing.
Hope you found it helpful, Benaatl. Happy to answer any questions.
Possible to share the job description that you used?
Sure thing. Here's the JD text we used. Note: LinkedIn AI did a pretty good job, but we edited to be more descriptive and to suit our specific needs.
Company Description -
Rocket Form is a platform that allows users to quickly design and deploy stunning forms for personal, educational, or business purposes. With Rocket Form, users can gather feedback, capture leads, and boost engagement effortlessly. The platform enables efficient collection of insights and empowers users to make informed decisions based on valuable feedback and data.
Role Description -
This is a volunteer remote role for a Beta Tester at Rocket Form. The Beta Tester will be responsible for testing and providing feedback on the platform's features and functionality. This includes identifying and reporting any bugs or issues, as well as suggesting improvements and enhancements. The Beta Tester will collaborate with the development team to ensure a smooth user experience and contribute to the overall quality and success of Rocket Form.
Qualifications -
-- Experience in beta testing software or applications
-- Strong attention to detail and problem-solving skills
-- Excellent communication and collaboration abilities
-- Ability to work independently and remotely
-- Familiarity with form design and data collection
-- Basic understanding of software development processes
-- Willingness to provide constructive feedback and suggestions for improvement
This is such a creative approach to getting beta testers! Using to attract volunteers is genius, especially with the built-in AI writing assistant. How effective was the follow-up communication in converting testers into active users?
Thank you. It is certainly a great method for getting folks to try your product. We've built an online form builder (like Google Forms, Typeform, Tally), so it's difficult to measure engagement.
Our findings (from our audience of beta testers) is that they typically create online forms 1-3 times per month.
@Wisdom_chris sparked our thinking to further refine our beta testers to ensure we're onboarding beta testers who more frequently create online forms.
Since LinkedIn allows you to create multiple job posts, we'll try this strategy on our next pass.
Shipping is easy; growth is hard.
What a great way to leverage LinkedIn. Definitely saving this for later!
Glad you found it helpful. LMK if you have any questions about the process. Happy to help.
Thanks! Will do!
Thats actually a nice one, never thought linkedin job post could be this powerful.
Added to that, it's where much of our target customer base hangs out, so it's a great growth strategy.
Shipping is easy; growth is hard. Amen to that
Ha! Not sure if my co-founder / CTO would agree with that! Side note: He wrote about how we build it here: https://www.indiehackers.com/post/code-to-mvp-in-48-hours-e373234420
Awesome JZillion! I'll give it a try. Let's see =) Thanks for sharing!
Hope you find if helpful. Reach out if you have any questions.
The important question is: "How many of these beta testers turned into paying customers?"
Definitely! We haven't implemented our paid tier (yet), so just focusing on growth and retaining a portion of the beta testers as active users.
Was there any criticism for using a jobs posting that doesn't compensate?
Nope. LinkedIn makes it very clear that it's a volunteer (unpaid) assignment. Out of the entire batch, we had 1 person who asked whether they would be paid. Guess they didn't read the job description.
Thanks, that totally makes sense.
That's actually a clever way to get users. Didn't know you could leverage LinkedIn that way. Thanks for sharing!
It's certainly been a boost AND it has helped us prioritize some features that our testers have asked for.
Wow, people like you are the backbone of.....i don't know, my faith in humanity? Thanks for making this J, I almost gave up on LinkedIn haha :)
It's been a huge help in getting some traction and keeping us motivated. Heck, even a handful of users who share feedback is the very thing you need to push forward.
Very, very spot on. I'll keep trudging :)
The main question i have now, is what type of product could use LinedIn jobs or job postings as a customer acquisition channel. Any ideas?
Services might be a better alternative?
If I understand the question correctly, I'd say ANY job. You may want to browse LI jobs to see what others are posting.
Or, if I'm off in my response, LMK what product or service you're thinking and I'm happy to brainstorm ideas.
Excellent Work
Thanks! Hope you find it helpful.
Wow, this is a really clever approach! Never would have thought to use LinkedIn Jobs for this. Definitely going to try this out for my own project - thanks for sharing your process and results!
Yep! Let me know how it works out for you.
Thats creative of your team, but are the beta testers the demography for your product?
Great question, Chris. Our testers completed a feedback form and a handful indicated that they rarely create online forms (that's what the product we've built offers).
This wasn't a surprise, nor do we expect that all beta testers will remain users. Our main objective was to get feedback from a broad base of testers and refine the product based on their feedback.
Your question makes me wonder if we could have refined the job description even more to produce a set of testers who would be easier to retain as users.
Thanks for your comment.