For this Product Tip, let’s jump to your Beta version. With Alpha, you’ve ironed out some bugs, given it to a few friends/family members, and now, you’re ready for a slightly bigger step into the ring with your beta launch.
Waitlists, in-person events, ad campaigns…there’s a lot to consider for a successful beta launch, and while a Product Owner/Leader has to be aligned with the Sales + Marketing efforts, there’s also an underrated task.
A/B Testing, but early.
Some would say that the concept of A/B testing is more of a post-1.0 activity, but I actually beg to differ here.
I do think there’s a value to A/B Testing on your Beta Version, and as a Product leader, being able to setup a basic method to do A/B testing with your engineering. I personally recommend using Split.io for this task, as it contains a robust set of features that can make it a breeze for an engineering team to help setup + empower the A/B Testing process.
But back to the task at hand, why A/B test so early in the game? And what to A/B test at a beta point anyway?
With a new product, it doesn’t even need to be with the tangible beta product itself:
A/B Testing a Sales Deck
A/B Testing Website Copy
A/B Testing Onboarding
A/B Testing Beta Version Ad Campaigns
And of course, any actual features or defined-as-important aspects of your product.
A Product Owner doesn’t even have to own all of these items, but is someone who should keep their pulse on it to consider asking better beta questions and to better understand users during the beta launch phase.
And, being someone leading the product and making suggestions to different teams can be helpful in creating a data-driven culture as well.
And that’s something to think a little bit about as well. There might be a lot of items in the backlog and on the To-Do list, but being able to even run micro-experiments at the point of beta allows a team to set a tone of being data forward and also a team that keeps themselves accountable based on theories and predictions they have for the success of the product.
By doing it at the point of a Beta version, it simply doesn’t hurt to give an opportunity to lead the product based on early results that can create an even stronger launch and show even higher competency to users, investors, other parties looking in from the outside.