Ask HN: Steps to take near project completion?
The project I've been working on -- without going into the real nitty-gritty -- is a general purpose social network. I believe that it has real potential, but in moving forward, I'm going to be heading into territory I'm very unfamiliar with, into a very fierce market without any entourage, whilst operating on a shoestring budget.
Some of the specific things I really want to get a handle on are the following:
1. What are the best ways to recruit testers, or preferably, those mythical, golden early adopters that understand that lots of things can break but still stick it out and give tons of useful feedback?
2. What are some launching strategies that work for broke people? (Not college student with rich parents broke; "turtles all the way down" broke.)
3. If there were some kind of "app readiness" checklist, what would be the real make-or-break items on it?
4. What are the good venues for soliciting pre-launch discussion / brainstorming? Before fully launching, I'd like to do something along the lines of posting several screenshots or a quick video tour. This would be posted alongside some textual narrative describing the more important features in greater depth. My aim would be to gather some first impressions and ideas for enhancement before more serious testing or a full launch. Is this unnatural?
5. Any good advice for dealing with pre-launch jitters or the "I just gotta add one more thing" feeling?
Thanks in advance; I've been reading HN for years, and this is really the only place I could think to turn for this kind of advice.