Been banging my head against the wall here and could really use your collective wisdom.
I'm running research for a B2B SaaS product and need to interview ~15 product managers (our target audience). The problem? I have zero budget for panels like UserTesting ($50-200/participant is just not possible right now).
Here's what I've tried so far:
LinkedIn outreach — spent hours crafting personalized messages. Response rate: maybe 5%. Most people just ignore.
My personal network — exhausted after 3 interviews. Plus it's biased (all people I already know).
Twitter/LinkedIn posts — got a few likes, zero sign-ups.
Slack communities — some communities ban "recruitment posts", others just get ignored.
Emailing existing users — we don't have a big user base yet. Classic chicken-and-egg.
I'm spending more time hunting for participants than actually doing research. Something feels broken.
For those of you who've been there:
How do YOU find qualified participants without paying $50-200 per person?
What's your actual response rate from free channels?
Have you ever skipped research entirely because recruitment was too hard?
If you've got 3 minutes, I made a short survey about this problem. Would love to hear your experience — and I'll share the results with everyone who participates.
https://validatey.vercel.app/s/z34noiu
Thanks in advance. This community has saved me more times than I can count.
0 comments
—
I've spent weeks trying to find free participants for user interviews · HackerTrans
I'm running research for a B2B SaaS product and need to interview ~15 product managers (our target audience). The problem? I have zero budget for panels like UserTesting ($50-200/participant is just not possible right now).
Here's what I've tried so far:
LinkedIn outreach — spent hours crafting personalized messages. Response rate: maybe 5%. Most people just ignore.
My personal network — exhausted after 3 interviews. Plus it's biased (all people I already know).
Twitter/LinkedIn posts — got a few likes, zero sign-ups.
Slack communities — some communities ban "recruitment posts", others just get ignored.
Emailing existing users — we don't have a big user base yet. Classic chicken-and-egg.
I'm spending more time hunting for participants than actually doing research. Something feels broken.
For those of you who've been there:
How do YOU find qualified participants without paying $50-200 per person?
What's your actual response rate from free channels?
Have you ever skipped research entirely because recruitment was too hard?
If you've got 3 minutes, I made a short survey about this problem. Would love to hear your experience — and I'll share the results with everyone who participates.
https://validatey.vercel.app/s/z34noiu
Thanks in advance. This community has saved me more times than I can count.