I validated an idea & got my first sale in 20 minutes with nothing built, here's how...

Like many of you, I keep a list of ideas around.

On Thursday, someone with a large following on Twitter tweeted out an idea on my list that I have been casually working on.

I immediately replied:

And then I thought if people really want this then someone will buy. I had to leave for the airport in 15 minutes so I had to get this done quickly.

I rushed to put a pre-order page on Gumroad. I then replied to my comment and another person in the thread.

Here's what the pre-oder page looks like: https://gum.co/NDphv

Within 5 minutes I got my first pre-order sale!

Top takeaways from this little experience...

1. Don't overthink it. Action >>>>>> thinking. I could have spent time perfecting the copy of the Gumroad page or making the cover image pretty. Just get shit done. Move quickly.
2. That first sale made me a believer. People paying you is the best validation. I will now create this. The TAM is enormous.
3. Every person who replied and liked that thread is a prospect I'll reach out to when the course is ready. I doubt 95% will buy but 2-3% might. Nice little pool of prospects I have.
4. Leverage the audience of others, don't be shy.
5. Time constraints are your friend. It forced me to move. Set deadlines.
6. Twitter is awesome. I regret not using it sooner.
7. I should have made my release date earlier. I just noticed that it's 2/21. This probably hurt sales. Who wants to wait a month? I'll move this up.