Real World Technology Feedback

About AlphaBeta Finder

Who We Are

AlphaBeta Finder is a matching, search, and referral service that connects

• Individual Alpha or Beta Users
• Organizations or businesses willing to be Alpha or Beta sites
• Development companies, startups, or hardware or software teams looking for Alpha or Beta individuals or sites

Our founders are technology veterans with three decades of experience in creating and building new software and hardware both within shoestring startup environments and within global technology companies with complex products, versions, and releases. Our experience has taught us that the Alpha and Beta phases are critical to the success and lifespan of a technology project.

All too typically, Alpha and Beta phases fall far short of their objectives of obtaining real world feedback and input on a new product. The lack of real world input can cause spectacular downstream effects--millions of dollars can be wasted for product development that does not sell, careers can be botched, reputations with backers can be ruined, and early customer expectations and commitments can be broken.

Most often, Alpha and Beta phases are ineffective because there is not enough time, energy, or large enough rolodexes to obtain appropriate participants for this vital input. Finding, wooing, and communicating with people with the backgrounds, availability, and especially with the machine configurations that are needed to refine preproduction technology used to be hit and miss and filled with wasted time and effort that did not result in feedback.

The founders of AlphaBeta Finder.com know this firsthand because unfortunately, they were part of at least a few technology projects that failed or were cancelled because what users needed or wanted was mistimed or misinterpreted. This painful history has now been applied to creating and improving AlphaBeta Finders' profiling and matching service. We strongly feel that many of those past projects could have succeeded if only AlphaBeta Finders had existed back then. We could have gotten the evidence we needed to shape that past project for success. We could have shipped products that contributed to the world by solving a problem, meeting a need, or improving a situation if we could only have accessed enough Alpha and Beta users. We could have convinced our management and financiers what had to be done and what had to be changed in the product instead of debating among ourselves about gut feelings and instincts.

Finding Alpha and Beta users used to take a great deal of time and did not always achieve the desired responsiveness and insight that we hoped for. Too often, too few of these essential users were located, skewing the results of the Alpha and Beta phases so that its true marketability or requirements were mistaken. Too often, the Alpha and Beta users were not really qualified with the right configuration, forcing our development team to purchase, install, and support complicated hardware and software in order to produce the right test environment. Too often, our volunteer Alpha or Beta users were willing but simply did not have the right backgrounds or experience to provide meaningful insight into the product being tested. Too often, the focus of our development team was distracted and drained to support Alpha and Beta phases that did not produce the level of input and information needed.

If you want to avoid this happening to you on your next technology release, tapping into a large pool of motivated, qualified Alpha and Beta users and organizations can greatly improve your early stage feedback experience.

History

As a small organization, AppEngines, the parent company of AlphaBeta Finder, struggled with the budget and resources to acquire Alpha and Beta environments and relationships for their own software development projects. Finding and nurturing solid Alpha and Beta arrangements was an ongoing need. AppEngines could not have released its software without the input and insight of its Alpha and Beta partners. These invaluable relationships provided the unvarnished feedback needed to result in software that is marketable, solves a problem, or improves a situation. These relationships provided the testimony needed to obtain continued financial support and executive sponsorship for our development teams and decisions.

As AppEngines diversified its software projects, expanding its pool of Alpha and Beta real world users became a critical step in its growth. Over-reliance on the same users, no matter how willing and insightful they are, eventually skews the feedback. It is important then to tap as wide and diverse a set of real world users and their conditions and configurations as possible. As a small company, AppEngines could not afford the business development personnel it needed to devote more time and effort to finding and nurturing plentiful Alpha and Beta users. An online matching service would help AppEngines to find and qualify a larger pool of these influential users. But there was no such Alpha and Beta matching service to be found.

So we invented one. While the AlphaBeta Finder web site was programmed by us, it was tested using its own profile and search workflows to find Alpha and Beta users for itself. Qualities that are now integral to AlphaBeta Finder--the confidentiality of a software project, the need to hand select Alpha and Beta users according to a budget and search requirements, the online management of the user contacts and status, the double check on a user's interest and availability before a software company obtains their identity--were all co-developed and validated with direct and ongoing input from our own strategic Alpha and Beta users. These original Alpha and Beta users not only helped us test our concept and web site service, but we consider them the best testimony for our business.

As technology innovators, the creators of AlphaBeta Finder honed a set of best practices for locating, assessing, and interacting with Alpha and Beta users over the course of many years and projects. These best practices are now available on the AlphaBeta Finder web site under the FAQ section. We also built much of our best practices directly into the AlphaBeta Finder workflow itself so that our users can automatically take advantage of our history and experience. We hope your next software or hardware project takes advantage of the AlphaBeta Finder service to obtain the real world feedback it needs to be an unprecedented success.