Founders should charge early beta customers, often at a premium, because they get customized, high-touch service that solves urgent problems. This "do things that don't scale" approach generates revenue while you refine the product.
charge for your betas. In fact, I think you charge more. I talk to a lot of entrepreneurs who think that their thing isn't quite ready for the market and we're going to get some people to try using it. We're going to beta test, we're not going to charge them for it. And this can work in a very specific set of businesses, I think, but for the vast majority, I think what you really want is you want to find the customers who have the biggest problems and then you want to, you know, get them to be using your approach. To solve those problems. And that means you're probably providing a level of service on a bespoke basis that is far greater than what you plan to do for most of the rest of your customers, to do things that don't scale. And it is okay to charge them for this because what they're getting is early access to a solution to their problems. This is a real economically meaningful problem. They will want to pay for that to get that early access. So I usually tell people that when you're doing your beta, charge more. Consider it to be one of those things that don't scale, but also a source of revenue.
