Is a BetaList launch 🚀 still worth it in 2020?

I used BetaList twice in my life: in 2016 for one of my first international project, and this week.

I remember in 2016, it was a really cool way to get your first users. Actually, it was pretty magic. You sign up, you submit your startup, you wait a bit, your startup get featured, and traffic flows to your website. More than numbers of signups, you get the first users you can talk to. Cherry on the cake? It's free.

And if you have some $$$, you don't even have to wait. Magic, I said.

But we're in 2020. Their website didn't change an inch since 2016. Each product which is featured there does not have a lot of likes or comments. According to Similarweb, they are losing traffic every month.

It looks like a ghost town.

So, my question was: **is it still worth it to launch on BetaList in 2020? **

The only way to know was to do it again.

*NB: This article is not an "how to launch on BetaList", you can find plenty searching in Google or other places. *

Day 1

Monday morning. I wake up with an email from BetaList telling me we've finally been featured. What a good news! We can start the day.

Immediately, we can see a surge in traffic.

When I say a surge in traffic, you have to consider that we're very early stage: the website is 20 days old and we were doing around 40 visits a day so far.

During the day, we get featured in their daily newsletter, which was sent at 6:00 pm, Paris/Amsterdam/Rome time.

It brought a new traffic spike, and a new signups spike.

The first day was the most impressing in terms of signups.

Day 2

On the second day, we got featured in the Trending Startups section of their homepage. It brought us new visibility.

Traffic was still going well. The second day, we got almost the same level of traffic than the day before. But signups slowed down.

We didn't change anything on our website, so we don't really know why, but it is how it is.

Day 3

We kept being featured in the Trending Startups section of their website. It brought us some good traffic again.

Let's wrap the numbers here

Full transparency here. So here is a screenshot of our exact numbers.

So it's not so much traffic. But it is qualified.

We ended up with 46 new signups from BetaList. For a conversion rate of 14,9%. It's way higher than our usual 8%.

And that's what matters at the end.

Of course, it's not volume. It's "only" 46 sign ups. But for an early stage startup like us, it's priceless.

So, is it still worth it to launch on BetaList in 2020?

The answer is YES.

Who would say no to a bunch of free users? One should be crazy to!

If you consider paying for BetaList, you must be able to estimate if it's worth it or not.

You have to ask yourself a set of questions.
Is your product "BetaList optimized" to get results?
Are BetaList users your potential users?
Is your product offering a solution to a real pain?
Is your branding good enough?
Does your landing page convert?
Do you tell a story instead of showcasing features?
Have you got a follow up plan?

And a lot more I forget…
Keep in mind: you have to be ready to maximize your return on investment.

What would we change if we'd do it again?

The truth is that BetaList brings a real boost to your project in a very early stage. Unfortunately, we didn't try to maximize its effects.

So the question is how can you maximize that? Through a viral loop.

Here is an interesting article about that: https://medium.com/infinitypm/how-we-got-500-early-subscriber-using-betalist-medium-viralloops-32864816da5f

Of course, it's more work i.e more time spent on it. But in an early stage, time is what you have to offer to your project. And BetaList is a boost as you can hardly get anywhere else. So it's worth spending 1 or 2 days on it.