How to "sell before you build" without puking
I might be at fault for @Primer's rumbling stomach. Sorry about that.
What I actually mean by selling before building is having enough conversations with people to let your idea morph into something people want to buy.
It doesn't mean trying to shove your first idea down people's throats and as @Primer points out it doesn't work anyway.
As you're talking to more and more people you're going to need to come up with some sketches, then some mockups, then an MVP, and then a fully useable product. Different people will be willing to commit at different stages. But looking for the right people to talk to only after you've fully built your product definitely makes things harder.
So maybe a better framing would be "make sure you're building something people will buy before you build it". And yes, the holy grail for that is having some presales in your pocket.
But I also realize that this is nearly impossible advice for developers and indie hackers to follow. I struggle to follow it too. When inspiration strikes I still often just build it.
It's much easier for us to build something than to talk to people about it (being introverts and all that). Instead of fighting this tendency, let's use it for our benefit.
We need to make sure we manage our energy, inspiration and motivation properly. We need to make sure we have a good reason to keep going. Stopping ourselves from building in order to talk to people can just cause an infinite cycle of proctastionation and avoidance.
The better approach is to "build as little as you can stomach" - enough to make a bit of your vision a reality but not so much that you're now deeply in sunk cost fallacy world and will struggle to change your idea to something profitable.
There's usually a point while building where you realize that what you thought would take a few hours might really need a few weeks. By that point you probably have a proof of concept of some sort, enough to convince you that it's possible, but definitly not enough for other people to use it.
That is when talking to your potential customers will bring the most benefit. You already have the boost of motivation from building something interesting and you're not yet mired in the minutia of Oauth logins, billing and scalability.
Come find me on Twitter if you want to have a deeper chat about these things.
Perhaps most developers just want to execute without the responsibilities that comes with having actual customers. Puking or not.
I think having customers is something a lot of devs are more comfortable than actively getting customers. But I agree that working on a project for its own merit had some appeal to a much younger version of me.
I would rather puke and sell before I build, than build something no one needs 😆
You are you but this is not expected behavior. Real indie hackers prefer to build whatever they are interested in, and do it ASAP, and it's big good luck if their interest overlaps the customer's interest.
This got a lot of traction and I decided to do a course on how to sell before you build.
Would love your feedback!
https://elifiner.gumroad.com/l/sell-before-you-build
I suppose that's the dream of almost any entrepreneur, right? As long as you communicate it to the right people you can get anything off the ground, I hope
True 💯 but it all makes sense only if you can build and launch small products quickly and then move on to the next small products if it won’t work out. For something big and time consuming, you definitely be better meticulously testing idea before building anything 🤷🏼♀️
Testing != selling.
True that.
Preach!
Puking > wasting months of your life on a gamble.
This got a lot of traction and I decided to do a course on how to sell before you build.
Would love your feedback!
https://elifiner.gumroad.com/l/sell-before-you-build
This got a lot of traction and I decided to do a course on how to sell before you build.
Would love your feedback!
https://elifiner.gumroad.com/l/sell-before-you-build
I love these titles.
🤢🤮
When inspiration strikes I still often just build it.
Too relatable in my case, and has not been good for us tbh. I've been guilty of that the past 8 months and turned out the features were to off market needs after all. No we're pivoting and repackaging our product while actually talking to users. If you're early stage I can really recommend reaching out to people to ask to have a 15 min interview- We're doing this with Product Managers rn and it has, in two weeks, taken us a looong way already, in terms of getting people excited about our product, understanding the problem better as well as generating presales as you're saying.
Wish I understood that earlier!
This got a lot of traction and I decided to do a course on how to sell before you build.
Would love your feedback! Does it cover everything you've learned?
https://elifiner.gumroad.com/l/sell-before-you-build
Absolutely. I'm glad you've made the switch to talking to people, it makes such a huge difference!
By the way, what about niches with established competitors? People there would expect a certain level of service, user interface, and user experience. They wouldn't be satisfied with mockups. And in principle, they'll generally say "yes sure we'll buy it if you build it, if you really deliver." Meanwhile, they'll continue using competitors' products because they work now. I've did just that and it seemed like I was at square one and had to build more anyway.
This got a lot of traction and I decided to do a course on how to sell before you build.
Would love your feedback! I intend to cover choosing the right niche, but maybe there's something else that I should add?
https://elifiner.gumroad.com/l/sell-before-you-build
Some types of products have a high barrier of entry like that. I was just talking to someone about a budgeting app for couples he wanted to build. The thing he wanted to improve was the ability to manage the same budget from multiple distinct account. While I'm sure this is a valuable addition, building a full budgeting app is quite the undertaking and if that's your only differentiator, you're not going to be able to sell anything until you have a working app - an likely not even then.
I think that when people say "build it and we'll see" you don't (yet) have a good problem to solve. I'm not saying you can't make a business out of it, I'm saying it's going to be a slog. And indies usually can't afford a slog - we have limited time, limited resources, and limited motivation working by ourselves.
Great question, I second this if anyone has anything further to share. My short view on this:
This got a lot of traction and I decided to do a course on how to sell before you build.
Would love your feedback! Do I cover what you have in mind for this?
https://elifiner.gumroad.com/l/sell-before-you-build
Absolutely. I'd add that you need to make sure that the distinctive feature adds a ton of value to your initial target niche, to the point that lacking other "industry standard" features is not a show stopper.
I personally think that there are 2 levels of "sell before you build": The product level or the feature level.
The product level is I think pretty hard (for a developer): Create a website and try to pre-sale.
The feature level is easier:
A book like "The lean start-up" can help you there.
This got a lot of traction and I decided to do a course on how to sell before you build.
Would love your feedback! I'm planning to address both features and new products, although I think new products are much harder.
https://elifiner.gumroad.com/l/sell-before-you-build
It's definitely easier for a feature level. Bootstrapping PMF is much harder than keeping it alive.
Build as little as you can stomachjust to give the people an idea of what you are trying to achieve - is a really sound advice. It stands somewhere between nothing and MVP.past few days I was worried that my idea sounds shiny just to me and I might not get customers once I built it. Now i know the approach i should take to validate what I am building. thanks for this
Pre-sell-it vs. just-build-it, is that the question? I can see the middle road, which is to build a little platform with a blog seeded with good content, some surveys, maybe a newsletter, and some tweeting... Make finding and connecting, engaging with your people easy so you can know them well before you attempt to sell. It is a slow but sensible way.
It's sensible for sure, but it's also pretty slow. Instead of going out and finding people who'd want to buy what you're thinking of building, you're creating a magnet that would pull them to you. Barring some magic, it's going to take many months to build momentum and you won't know if you've got something that resonates with people or not for that entire time. I think it's the right thing for step 2, a kind of prep for scaling, after you've found your initial market fit and have proof that the idea is worth pursuing.
This got a lot of traction and I decided to do a course on how to sell before you build.
I'm definitely going after the build before anything exist and I'd love your feedback! Maybe a bit more of a middle road could be helpful to people.
https://elifiner.gumroad.com/l/sell-before-you-build
hehe it is funny that mentors/coaches create so many different strategies for the same problem: You should talk to the target audience before building the product.
Instead of strategies over strategies, tell me how can validate an idea to find out if the idea is worthy enough to go through the hassle of reaching out to a target audience.
This got a lot of traction and I decided to do a course on how to sell before you build, but I'm definitely starting this with a validation framework on how to choose a good idea to put some effort in in the first place.
Would love your feedback!
https://elifiner.gumroad.com/l/sell-before-you-build
nice marketing stunt
I am one of those who haven't sold before building.
The reason is that there are already a few services like mine on the web and they are making really good money.
Considering the hurry to launch as soon as possible I completely skipped the validation phase as I considered the idea validated by others.
Now, I launched, and I am struggling in finding users anyway.
Not sure what to think, probably mine has been a big mistake. But probably (and hopefully) I'll be able to fix it :)
This got a lot of traction and I decided to do a course on how to sell before you build so that people don't fall into the same trap over and over again.
Would love your feedback!
https://elifiner.gumroad.com/l/sell-before-you-build
"Sell before you build" seems to mean different things to different people. I have seen an online course advertised that taught people to: find a business problem by talking to people, get pre-payments for said problem, then hire a developer to build the solution. That's literally selling before you build.
While that approach can work, it's very risky because it's far too easy to run out of money before you can deliver.
"By that point you probably have a proof of concept of some sort, enough to convince you that it's possible..."
Damn you! Why did you have to cover this? Now I can't throw in my time machine joke... Ugh...
I often say that, I'm an extrovert stuck in an introvert's world. But these are just states. I don't believe anyone's one or the other.
I've gone from one to the other in a matter of a couple or so weeks of having completely changed my daily practices. Done this numerous of times in the past decade and a half. (You are what you do.)
But to finally get on topic, I don't vibe much with the market analysis-driven development (sounds a bit madd), because I'm in the mobile apps realm and market analysis is so much more convenient than in the SaaS market. We actually have data of some sort -- like, note my handle, it's so mobile market data-ish.
In the latter, you don't have much insight on other services and how they might be performing. So I could totally see how pre-development marketing (or whatever you call it) is the way to go.
That title, btw, and the first sentence... Just so crafty. I enjoy the creativity that flows through the minds of this community. It's a treat.
I think we're just talking about two different ways to do market research: you either release an app and gather stats or you look for and talk to your target audience. You can probably build an app in a month. You can also have 10-15 conversations in the same timeframe. Conversations provide richer data and a much more refined understanding of what you should be building as opposed to a binary "well, that failed" answer just building and releasing tends to provide.
And as for introvertedness, I think the disctinction is mostly around the inescapable need to spend time by yourself in a dark corner shaking under a blanket after a period of social exposure. I can definitely be extraverted for a short period of time, but the need to decompress comes around with deadly preditability.
Case in point, I have about 10 quasi-sales calls scheduled for the coming week. I expect a lot of need for blanket time, which my extraverted wife and kids will have a hard time understanding :)
Man, after my previous super-sized response, I feel a bit hesitant to post another one. But we've got two conversations going and I'm very interested in both. So pardon me on these mega-sized responses.
Trust me, I know a little about this. I froze in front of someone's wife once, during conversation, as like a car stops on the highway suddenly. And I was very annoyed (while also fascinated with the experience), as it was happening, because I couldn't troubleshoot it to restore myself.
And I had never experienced anything like that before. (Been in software development for the past ~6 years, was in the military and the medical field prior to that, with college in between. No psych problems ever diagnosed. A brain MRI scan recent to the event was also perfectly good to go.)
It's the neural circuitry. Use it or lose it. And if one has never developed it much, then it needs to be.
The tempo of her super well-maintained, skilled eye contact and conversational rhythm knocked me off of mine, as mine was long out-of-practice and received practically zero maintenance for years. She fairly and skillfully dominated the conversation as a result of the situation, by default (and not intentionally).
And my neural clock was weakly synchronized to hers, then some individual momentarily walked by and I experienced, what one might as well call, a short circuit. (I'll admit, again, it was fascinating to observe the experience internally, but not cool for hospitality.)
I promise that there was no intimate or romantic inspiration, nor was I intimidated by anyone. But having been an "extrovert" (or "extravert") for a longer duration of my life, in the past, I was familiar with the fact that, that was not what I was. It was a matter of brain state -- one dictated by my activities in the past half decade or so. And it was all totally okay.
So no blanket time for me -- unless there will be others there too, because I need more social time for redevelopment of a much needed brain state. I just don't have time for it yet, in the current phase of this lifestyle. (You are what you do.)
And yes, I have time for this versus that, because this is strategic. I'm developing a presence here. Trying to add value to the community and exchange ideas. (I just need to redevelop my writing skills too, since the length of my responses have been ridiculous.)
I certainly accept that there might be more that I may be missing about the concept or condition. But the need to escape or find solitude is likely just one of two paths. The other is probably the tendency to dive into it head-on and try to gain dominance over it (the "fight" path) -- the one that I choose.
And the path-selection is probably not a static property. In my case, I just know I can achieve a different state, because I have before. So I try to face it. Eventual desensitization to general social discomfort is what might induce the other state, which requires consistent failure at some unknown rate (based on personal experience from my early teen years). It's literally a state in which things are processed differently, and not like a skin-thickening effect.
I was going to write out a long winded retort, but I actually think you're mostly right. Two years ago I wouldn't have thought it possible to be able to do outreach and sales calls all day long and be happy doing it and yet that's what I'm doing for my business right now. So it stands to reason that in-person interaction with massive amounts of unfamiliar people is an aquirable skill as well. I'll give this some more thought. Thank you. 🙏
Interesting. If I recall correctly, my psychology teacher in high school taught us that, in order to maintain a healthy psychology, every person needs at least 1 "warm fuzzy" and 3 "cold fuzzies" a day. (Sounds a bit arbitrary, as usual with this field.)
The former is a physical interaction with good intention, like: a hug, a handshake, a high-five, maybe even the act of smiling at each other (as a physical cue), and so on. And the latter is a non-physical interaction also with good intention, like: saying hello or what's up, recognizing each other's presence, and so on.
Let's disregard the "healthy psychology" assertion and instead observe the two mechanisms as possible drivers of social state. In my early extraversion phase (teen years), I engaged in a lot of hugs and other warm fuzzies with a lot of people every day, both familiar and unfamiliar (regardless of gender or other demographics).
So warm fuzzies with outside groups (or acquaintances and unfamiliar individuals) may be part of the requirement for eventually phasing into the extraverted state. And being in that state for long enough or inducing its precursor enough times would make that neural network the dominant one for the task of socializing or being present around others, until it goes out of practice for long enough.
This came to mind, because you get a ton of cold fuzzies regularly, but a level of introverted experience still occurs. So maybe if there was like, I don't know, 1 warm fuzzy for every 3 cold fuzzies with unfamiliar people (or even acquaintances), then there might be some drastic shift in state, at some point. And I suggest family and friends won't affect this, because they're sort of an [in-group]. They're too familiar to affect one's default state for being around unfamiliar people.
Ultimately, it doesn't really matter as far as socializing goes. But it does tend to matter when one needs to switch from software engineer to CEO within like a month, due to some series of in-person meetings or the like. So something like this can be an essential framework, if it actually works for most people.
Yes, I agree with the distinction of the different methods. The difference between the mobile marketplace and independent SaaS sales is that, in the former, we already have the conversations and a blocky-sort of dataset available to us from the market platforms (Google Play Store, Apple App Store, and others).
But in the latter, you have to either find their reviews or conversations somewhere online or literally engage with them before you can get anything.
So what we get in the mobile app market is the exposure of install rates, user ratings, reviews, and other valuable details.
At this point, if the reader does not have any interest in the mobile app market, then this comment has reached its conclusion.
If you take interest in more insight, then the following are the primary steps that I take in mobile app and game market analysis (skipping the prerequisites, as they're common); although, it is much more arbitrary and situation-dependent than this.
Step 1 - Install Rate Trend Analysis
I wouldn't touch a mobile app project even with a 10-foot pole in a HAZMAT suit, if current apps of its likeness don't have a minimum install rate of between 100,000 to a million -- at least a few of them released within the last 2-5 years (depending) -- on either Android or iOS.
In-Between Step - Review and Rating Scan
If there are no signs of some level of traction or user-engagement continuity (such as recent reviews and their volumes), then there's no need for a step 2. It's a graveyard.
Step 2 - Review Analysis
If a number of users haven't been recently complaining about some of the same problems across the different leading apps, via the app reviews, then I don't have a problem to solve. I'm not going to guess for the users. It's a mighty bad idea (or, rather, a risky one), as we all know. The market is no place for personal fancies. But this is one of the privileges of the mobile app market, currently.
Clarification: being personally in need of a solution is obviously not the same as being fanciful about a solution. The former condition has proven to produce some of the biggest market winners.
In-between step - Feature Scan
If the leading apps have already solved these problems, then I don't have a convincing level of market opportunity. Each will only be yet another feature that the new app might need to possess just to compete with the status quo. Unless the users, in their reviews, are complaining about the current implementations.
From step 3 and on, things get fairly common between the different types of platforms and models. Like current monetization strategies of leading apps, their credibility, the likelihood that they're actually profitable and successful, one's own company's ability to sustain the required infrastructure, and so on.
Now for some shits and giggles: my handle, trophy churn, is a reference to how a mobile app tends to have an active userbase that's only a small percentage of its install rate.
So those who either uninstalled immediately or sometime later (the mobile app version of churn) are a trophy, because it makes the app look like it has that many users. It increases its social proof almost for free or for half the price -- however one might want to look at it ('cause it may have taken some effort to get the installs).
And thanks for the trophy churn explanation. Mobile apps was never my scene and I didn't know any of it!
This is fascinating, because you're basing your analysis of the potential for a new mobile app or game on the ratings and reviews for similar games. And you're looking for a valid problem to solve in the criticism those other apps receive. That's actually a fascinating B2C equivalent to the "talk to the customer" approach that's commong for B2B things. I think it could be valid for SaaS as well if your research is looking for complaints about existing alternatives on e.g. Reddit or Twitter.
So how do you go about finding the first dedicated users of your new app once it's out? In the conversations paradigm, those early conversations turn into early and loyal customers who provide feedback, testimonials and the motivation to keep building. Or do the app stores provide enough exposure unaided?
In the same way. That's one of the common best practices, except that it might start prior to beta testing for startup games. So I think the earliest time or state at which one can effectively approach potential users is heavily-dependent on the niche and the nature of the product. There's the question of, "What does the target audience need to see before they can give an opinion?"
For instance, gamers tend to get pissed when nothing is shown. Even when you show them something, it better look really good or some sort of attractive (like, maybe, pixel art). Or they might, y'know, puke out of frustration that you had the audacity to try to get their attention.
As far as the app stores, it's difficult to tell whether they provide enough exposure, unaided. If you do nothing, and if no editor notices it, and if no influencer notices it out there, and if it doesn't somehow strike the right balance of App Store Optimization (ASO) by luck, then probably no. It's going to just eat dust like most apps do. (Some of mine certainly have.)
On the other hand, if you can manage the first dedicated users, and if your app does make some money consistently (through the app store), then the app stores will tend to work in the app's favor (or, rather, in their own favor with mutual benefits) and probably, at some point or rate, expose it significantly more than it would've ever been exposed just by marketing efforts. But then, there are so many conditions to this that mostly depend on how well the market research phase was able to fit the idea into the market potential.
But to be fair, this is more of a SaaS type of community, the way that I've seen it so far. So suddenly these other types of products were introduced in the coversation and it was probably unexpected. I feel that what you've posted is good advice for SaaS. It just makes sense; although, the business aspect of SaaS hasn't been my scene.
This got a lot of traction and I decided to do a course on how to sell before you build.
Would love your feedback even though you're in a different kind of market where it's not as crucial.
https://elifiner.gumroad.com/l/sell-before-you-build
TL;DR: There's a potential attention drop-off before getting to the backstory part, which you may wish to address by adapting the backstory into the intro.
A lot of nerve for a commenter like me to write about attention, huh? lol
It's a good pitch, but I feel that the enticing part starts at the backstory. To me, that's where the sale is made. (Although, maybe that's just the magic of having built up to it. You'd know better.)
"Every founder's worst fear is to build something no one wants to buy."
Bam! You show proof. Killer selling point. Credibility spikes up pretty good at that point.
It's not just that snippet by itself, but the fact that you present the assertion as an amalgamated observation of multiple external sources that converge on the same point — rendered into a single assertion of objective truth.
So should you wait that long to make the sale, if the visitor might be willing to pay sooner than that?
(Absolute statements tend to kill it for me, but I get it. It's a sales pitch. It has to make strong assertions.)
I totally agree! Building can be fun, but hearing crickets trying to market a feature you have already built can be very painful.
I've been trying to test it before I build it for my product: https://watchlimits.com/
e.g. here I'm talking about a new feature that "I built" and well, I haven't really built it yet: https://www.reddit.com/r/productivity/comments/vqkmab/pay_money_to_waste_time_ultimate_productivity_hack/
it seems controversial, but maybe there is still some hope for it?
This got a lot of traction and I decided to do a course on how to sell before you build.
Would love your feedback! I'm gearing it to both new products and new features, but I think new products are somewhat harder.
https://elifiner.gumroad.com/l/sell-before-you-build
Seems like you got booted out lf that sub for advertising 😮. Reddit can be be a tricky place to get answers to questions like this. In order to find people to ask about this you'll need to find a sub-niche of all the people who are suffering from this kind of procrastination and reach out to them individually. You don't need statistics at this point, just to find a few people who'd be excited about the idea and willing to pay for it.
A niche could be last year engineering students who are supposed to be learning for their finals, but find themselves procrastinating. You might find them on engineering forums that have nothing to do with productivity.