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How I got 8 paid pre-orders within the first 24 hours of publishing my book landing page

First of all, I'm cheating in the title. This whole process has been closer to three weeks and not 24 hours, but I am stoked nonetheless to have gotten 8 paid pre-orders of my upcoming book in less than 24 hours of putting up my landing page. I detail how below.

How it started

Gumroad had a 14 day product challenge. I was late to the party but knew it would take me more than 14 days to write about my idea anyway.

I'm no expert, and don't claim to be, but indie hacking and this wonderful community has changed my life. In the past year I've finally (after attempting many times) built a SAAS product that generates a meaningful monthly recurring revenue.

Over the past couple of years I've heard and read so many stories about failed businesses, people spending months building a product to no avail, and even people losing tens of thousands of dollars trying to build SAAS businesses.

Obviously not every business/product can succeed. We all know that the likelihood is low. But surely more people can at least find some success building SAAS products. One thing that I've found super helpful and motivating is reading and hearing about IndieHackers and their journeys. Literally seeing them building these products, getting their first few customers, and growing is so inspiring. Hearing about and learning from failures is also helpful and a great learning opportunity.

So, for my book, I wanted to write about getting your first SAAS customer. There are tons of resources out there on how to hire, raise money, build a team, grow and scale, and even sell a startup but not many people talk about that first crucial step: just getting your first SAAS customer.

My idea was to interview and showcase real makers and founders, their stories, and their products. With a focus on how they got their first SAAS customer.

The beginning

I put up a super simple landing page that basically explained what I said above, and had a "sign up to get notified when it launches" form.

After about 2 weeks of building in public, and talking about my progress on here and twitter I got about 30 signups.

Meanwhile, I was going crazy interviewing founders and studying early stage startup strategy.

Deciding to take pre-orders

I had received a bit of interest and all the makers/founders I was talking to thought what I was doing was a great idea. I thought if people were willing to signup this early, why not take pre-orders, and offer a discount in return.

I spent the whole next day designing and building a landing page. I hit publish and sent out a tweet. I also emailed the 30 subscribers who had previously signed up (Only 7 of them opened the email :(, but I guess I can't expect much else)

24 hours later I have 8 pre-orders and couldn't be happier. The book is launching on December 7th and I'm trying to squeeze in as many more interviews as I can.

If you're interested, pre-order the book here, How to get your first SAAS customer

I'd also love to know if there is anything in particular that you'd like to learn about in regards to getting customers for SAAS businesses.

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