This question came up a few times in this weeks' office hours: how do we get a list of users to try your product and give you feedback?
Jesse Leimgruber from NeoReach put together the following ranked list of ~300 places you can submit your product at launch:https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1leGn6nlu96pIJ68dw3lzeKRRiIiC7jG2MCgEhMRiSZI/edit#gid=0
These are services where you can list or launch your startup to a broad, preexisting community in an attempt to encounter new user types. Experimentally, systematically launching to everyone on this list of communities will yield a few hundred to several thousand signups.
It's important to note that these are typically unqualified sources of traffic – early adopter communities and similar – so when analyzing the outcomes here, you should be looking for patterns in feedback from users to find reproducible user personas, versus treating this as a scalable way to get growth.
The "A" ranked places on Jesse's list are worth starting with, and summarized below along with his comments. (I wouldn't bother with anything past "B"– you should be more focused than that.)
- Reddit Programming. "Very strong community. Great leads if your product is for devs."
- Reddit-Entrepreneur Appreciates good storytelling.
- Social Influencers – Jesse can intro.
- PR Log – "Free press release distribution service"
- F6S "Platform to features startup deals"
- Mashable Press – go in through an intro.
- Techcrunch Press – go in through an intro.
- Android Authority "I know him. Have worked with him."
- Startup List "Some people say it's hit or miss. I love it."
- Fiverr Tactics "Lots of spam, sift through the noise"
- Slack List and Chitchats.co "Join (and ask for feedback) in a private Slack Group"
- Hackernews "Most active community of hackers and entrepreneurs."
- Top Bloggers "Network of bloggers."
- Shoutcart "Network of influencers $20-$200/each"
- Beta List "Really really good. 25k+ Audience"
- ProductHunt "The undisputed leader in my opinion. Thousands of visitors."