Purpose of stages of Product

Monetisation should be as early as possible, as it presents a challenge and could force you to redesign the whole thing if done too late. Alpha stage is for internal testing, by the people who made it or by highly competent 'super' users. Beta testing is done with the first batch of real users. The early adopters, those who don't mind an unpolished experience subject to radical change. By the time you are in beta, the technical fundamentals of the product should be set. Beta is about tweaking the fundamentals and changing features based on what the users say.