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4 Comments

How many (paying) users to validate a project?

Hello,
I am the founder of Podstatus.com, a SAAS for podcasters.

When I launched the product, my goal was to get 10 paying users, to validate the idea.

I got those 10 users in a short time and with almost no marketing. The feedback I receive from customers is very positive. Now I have surpassed that number and I am a bit stuck. I don't have new subscribers daily (like in the first days).

What do you think? How many (paying) users to validate a project? I've read on some sites that 5 users are enough, on others 10, on others 20...

In the case of Podstatus, do you think it's time to invest something in ads?

Any comments are welcome!

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    Validation is more like a compass direction than a gate -- you keep following its signals and taking the next step in the right direction, forever. You're never "done" validating since there's always a new feature/product/offering/page/language/whatever.

    Similarly, you never just start a sudden, gigantic ad budget. You play with a small amount ($20, $50, $200, whatever's comfortable) and watch the data and optimize the campaigns and improve the weak spots in your funnel and follow that data to get a little closer to the right direction. And you keep improving and bump up the spend only after you've proven that it's profitable. And if it's still miles away from profitable, you cut your losses at $20 or $50 or wherever is comfortable.

    These things aren't binary, they're directional.

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      Hello Rob,
      thank you very much for taking your time answering. You gave me lot of value and things to think about.

      Btw, I think we are both based in Barcelona. If I see you at an event or something like that, I'll definitely show up. :)

  2. 2

    How did you get those 10 first customers? Why would you even want to do something different than until now?

    If you haven't figured out ads already, it can be quite costly in money and time to get those right, and ads are rather a way to scale quicker than the next step after idea validation. You can try ads out of curiosity, but I don't think that's the way to go yet.

    IMHO, do what you are doing already, until it doesn't work anymore.

    In terms of idea validation, yes I think in your case 10 is enough. That's my gut feeling guessing though, to make it more precise I'd also bring in metrics like the time it required you to get the 10 customers, what the conversion rate on your site is and how much you've already invested in the project time/money wise to actually say if 10 is enough. When the feeling disappears and turns into certainty, you've validated the project.

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      Hi! Thank you for your answer.

      I got my first customers from different sources:

      • I had a free beta opened and some users converted
      • Did some interviews in podcasting podcasts
      • Instagram

      At the moment I am starting growing a twitter account and also bring me some clients.

      I think took 2 weeks to get the first 10. At the moment I have daily new user registering, but not much users enters the credit card. I ask for the cc before starting the free 15 days trial.

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