After two failures, I made my first sales with a product that's not launched yet

Introduction

Hello, Indie Hackers! I'm Andrei, a software developer, trying to build a successful startup on the side of my 9-5 job. I want to share a story about how I turned a frustrating personal experience into a business idea, validating it before even launching the product.

I've launched two products so far. Both times, I worked hard and gave it my all, but unfortunately, neither took off. I even had to shut down the first one. I won't lie - it was tough, but it taught me a lot. There is a full article about it here.

The Inspiration

I was quite down at that point. Doubting myself and looking for ways to make things work. Luckily I came across a meme with a guy editing a video and it instantly reminded me of a problem that I faced.

Identifying the Problem

A few months ago, I spent around a month trying to create a promo video for my first product. The idea was simple, just a small video that would showcase the features of the product. But, as a startup without any revenue, I couldn't afford to hire a professional to create it, so I decided to do it the hard way: learning and doing it myself. It was a grueling, painful process and the result was mediocre at best. It was a frustrating and time-consuming experience but, at the time, I didn't realize that this is a problem that people are facing, so I just moved on.

The Solution

Now, after remembering all of this, I just realized that I had experienced first-hand a problem many indie hackers and startups face: creating promotional videos is tough. So I started searching the internet for tools to see if there is anything out there that would allow me to solve this problem and turn it into a service. And luckily, there was. So I experimented for a few days, tried some things out and the results were really good, so I decided to go ahead with it.

Validating the Idea

Before diving head-first into building this product, I decided to validate the idea. My past experiences had taught me the importance of this step.

The validation process was similar to the one that I used for my second project, but instead of a waiting list, this time I set up a Pre-Sale campaign. I didn't like this approach before because I always felt like asking people for money without having a product ready to be shipped would just annoy them, especially if they don't know you personally. But seeing many other founders following this approach, I decided to do it as well. After all, after working for almost a year on products with $0 revenue, there aren't many things that can hurt you anymore.

So, I put up a landing page and wrote a tweet about it, talking about the product. I even created a video using the product that I shared in the tweet and on the landing page. Even though most of the things were done manually, I felt like I needed to give people a small taste of what the product is about and what it can do.

Surprising Success

To my surprise and delight, the response was positive. I made three pre-sales, totaling $124. I know that for many people this doesn't mean anything, but it is a huge deal for me. The product isn't even built yet and here I am, making sales.

Reflections and Lessons Learned

I won't lie, before this, I had very low expectations, most likely because of my two unsuccessful products. I wasn't expecting to get much traffic and I definitely wasn't expecting to make any sales. But this small win gave me confidence, and importantly, motivation. I am onto something, and people were willing to pay for it.

The pre-sale strategy worked well for me. It not only provided financial support but also validated my product idea. Now, I'm working harder than ever, but it's all worth it because now I know that I'm building something that has the potential to help people.

With this, I also underwent a significant shift in my understanding of validation. A product is validated only if someone is willing to pay for it. Anything less can easily lead to false hope until proven otherwise. In the past, I deluded myself into thinking that if I kept building, it would eventually take off, but that was not the case, at least for me. For instance, I tried validating my second product with a landing page and a waiting list. Thirty people signed up for it, and I considered it validated. However, more than a month after the launch, only 36 people had registered on the free plan. I could try and iterate, and improve it in the hope that someone will eventually pay. This is a valid process as well. But given that nobody paid for it in over a month, there is only one takeaway for me: it doesn't bring enough value to make people pay for it.

If there's anything I've learned from this experience, it's the importance of validating your idea before you go all in. Trust me, it saves a lot of time and heartache. And if your first idea, second, third, and so on, doesn't work out, keep going. You will eventually find a problem worth solving.