What makes a good beta student?
Yesterday, I held the first weekly call for the latest beta “cohort” of my Build Your Best Course programme.
It’s a great group of people and I’m really excited about working with them over the next 12 weeks.
And it got me thinking more deeply about what makes a good beta student.
(Beta student = person who takes an early version of your course at a reduced cost so you can get their feedback.)
Ideally you’ll want to find 5–10 beta students for the first launch of your course.
Hearing that, it’s natural to start thinking of people you could most easily persuade to sign up.
Obvious targets: friends, family, close professional contacts.
But those people usually make bad beta students.
Here’s why:
- They’ll say yes from loyalty not need
- You’ll feel weird about asking them to pay
- They’re probably not your primary target market
- They probably won’t do the work
- They probably won’t give good feedback
