How would you quickly prototype/test a service that usually takes place over several months?

Apple will allow a developer to register 100 UDID devices per 12 month cycle to test via TestFlight or HockeyApp. Having started with TestFlight, I would really encourage you NOT to use it, and go directly to HockeyApp. HockeyApp is a much better product. There is also enterprise distribution which allows you far more UDID's but whether you qualify for enterprise distribution is difficult to say. As part of your testing, I'd encourage to explicitly ask your testers to only register one device. One of the things we experienced was some testers registering 3 devices but only used one, essentially wasting those UDID's where we could have given to other testers. Who you invite to be a tester should be selective as well. I think you should have no more than 10 non-user users. These people should be people who have either built successful mobile apps or who are just such huge consumers of similar mobile apps to what you're building, that they can give you great product feedback even though they aren't your user. Specifically, they can help point out non obvious UI problems and better ways to implement particular features. The rest of your users should be highly qualified as actually wanting what you're building. If they can't articulate why they should be the first to use what you're building, they are likely the wrong tester. The more you can do to make them "beg" to be a tester, the higher the sign that the feedback you're getting from them can be considered "high-signal." In a limited beta test, you're really looking to understand the biggest UX pain-points. For example, are people not registering and providing you the additional permissions you are requiring? Are they not completing an action that could trigger virality? How far are they getting in their first user session? How much time are they spending per user session? Obviously, you'll be doing your fair share of bug squashing, but the core of it is around improving the core flows to minimize friction as much as possible. Lastly, keep in mind that even with highly motivated users, their attention spans and patience for early builds is limited, so make sure that each of your builds really make significant improvements. Happy to talk through any of this and more about mobile app testing.

I would suggest launching in a foreign app store only (ex: Canada). That will allow you to get more organic users to continue iterating without a big push. I got this idea from Matt Brezina (Founder of Sincerely, previously Xobni) https://clarity.fm/brezina - he's the man when it comes to testing & iterating mobile apps.

Agreed with Sergio: you probably want to stay away from this one. We get branded by those we hang around. And if you're hanging around financially troubled firms, you'll get branded that way. And what happens to them rubs off on you. They go bankrupt, you were somehow involved...you must be at least partially responsible, 0.0001%, right? but still involved in their failure. Perception is reality. Executive attention of a case study based on a failed company isn't good.

It really depends on what you're building here. If you can do any part of your product manually, I would suggest doing that in the first version. The absolute fastest way is to hire a contractor to get it done, but that can be expensive. If your first prototype can't be built with a prototyping tool (even a Keynote presentation) and it's too expensive or difficult to build on your own, you have to convince other people that you are solving an important problem, that your solution solves that problem, and that you have the right team to do it. VCs in a seed round will care more about the team than the idea, but crowdfunders will care about both. And obviously getting designers or developers to join your team for equity will require convincing them of all 3. Happy to give more specific advice based on your app thrugh a Clarity call!

Based on my own experience building indie games I'd recommend these Reddit and Slack channels for beta testing: Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/AlphaAndBetaUsers https://www.reddit.com/r/playmygame https://www.reddit.com/r/indiegameswap/ https://www.reddit.com/r/freegames Slack: https://www.hamsterpad.com/chat/hashtaggaming https://www.hamsterpad.com/chat/gamedevelopment https://www.hamsterpad.com/chat/indie-game-devs Also, just give it to your friends and family and you can record their interactions with it using something like: https://www.lookback.io/ Finally, some paid options include: https://www.usertesting.com http://ubertesters.com/ https://betafamily.com/ If you want to discuss how best to design customer interviews / questionnaires for your specific app, to assess what you need to change, what to keep, etc. feel free to send me a message, best, Lee