How to find people with a common problem for beta

If I may, I’d like to suggest a change in approach.

Instead of this:

1. Have problem
2. Build a product that solves the problem
3. Search for others who share the problem and see if they’d be willing to try the beta

Try this instead:

1. Have problem
2. Search for others who share the problem and see if they’d be willing to talk to you about their frustration. (Maybe it’s the same as yours. Maybe not.)
3. Build a product and return to those same people and ask them to try it out. Iterate on their feedback.

And if you’re keen to build in public, try it this way:

1. Have problem
2. Talk about it in public. Ask if anyone else has solved it. Learn from their answers.
3. Search for others who share the problem. Find where they congregate. Join up with them, engage, discuss things, and see if they’d be willing to talk to you about their frustration. (Maybe it’s the same as yours. Maybe not.)
4. Share what you learned from these conversations. Talk about how their experiences overlap yours. Think out loud about what would be ideal solutions.
5. Creat an email list and/or newsletter where you can gather email addresses for folks you’ve spoken with and others who may want to follow your progress and read about your learnings.
6. Build a small beta product. Share updates with those same people you interviewed before, but also summarize your learnings for your email list.
7. As early as you can, invite folks you spoke to early on to try out your product. Iterate on their feedback.
8. Invite a small number of folks on your email list to try out your product.
9. Launch to your list.
10. With the support and amplification of folks on your list, launch to the world.

This way, you’re always in touch with folks eager to try your product. It’s still not a guarantee of success, but it’s better than no one seeing your product.

@Luxo I've got a few examples for you:

1. Learning from your competition's customers

• If someone is using a competitor, then they’re also a potential customer of yours. Reaching out and engaging these users/leads to convert them into your paying users.

2. Sharing a prototype to the related groups and forums

• This founder got 400 sign ups and 5 initial sales of a product that is yet to exist

3. Use a waitlist to create pre-launch buzz

• create some pre-launch buzz and get the word out by starting a waitlist.

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You can check out more such case studies if you're interested over at GrowthHunt.co, where I curates and summarised growth strategies for other founders to learn and replicate from.

Cheers & all the best!