So I have this problem, I built an mvp and signup page, attracted a lot of page views, got quite a few signups for the free tier (50 for example) and they were all of the type: sign up, login, look around, never came back. So using these 50 signups/emails as my network, I've done two things; emailed a survey link, and emailed just asking for feedback. And nothing, not one single response to either the survey, or the email. Of the 50 only one unsubscribed.
What am I to make of this? Is the fact I got 50 signups a signal the product has value and I should continue, or does the fact users don't return a signal the product is crap I should scrap it? I'm really at a loss here.
Aside from trying harder to reach those people, you possibly don't have a large enough sample. It is also possible you attracted the wrong people. For example, I'm in a space where there are lots of competing free products and we are a paid one. Just as one example, I had to put "free" as a broad negative keyword in AdWords to try to filter them out. Turns out there are entire classes of keywords that tends to resonate more with people looking for a free solution vs paid that I had to uncover and filter for.
I would suggest trying harder to get in touch with those free signups. Write them personal mails, not newsletter/ survey sounding mass mail. Pick 10 of them, tell them you are the founder, tell them why you started it and need there help finetuning the product, that you don't want to sell them anything but offer them $20 for a short Skype etc.
start with what you want to measure - what exactly is the metric for success here? is it just signups?
might help us to know a bit about what the product is, but is there something specific that users should be doing in this free tier? what % of the 50 are taking this action?
What am I to make of this? Is the fact I got 50 signups a signal the product has value and I should continue, or does the fact users don't return a signal the product is crap I should scrap it? I'm really at a loss here.