My journey to product idea validation

I have just started the fourth month of my journey. We are launching partnerplace.io in May, but I already managed to schedule 62 meetings with prospects and have a list of 19 leads that said they could be interested:

• 4 of them I consider highly interested / ready to buy
• 3 of them are interested in a trial version for 2 months
• 3 of them are interested, but in Q3
• 2 of them are interested, but not yet fully convinced
• the rest has seen the product, has mentioned it is something they see value in and maybe would be interested in buying once we launch

Most of these customers have already seen the product (some even during 2 separate meetings). They also know the timeline and have seen the pricing.

My goal is to convert 3-4 of them to paying customers from May. Seems realistic, but time will tell.

How did I do this?

The first step of my journey was to create a wireframe mockup of the tool, which I used to create the first presentation. I focused on the story of what we were building, why and how do I plan to make it work. I managed to meet with approx. 30 different prospects this way.

In the meantime I was creating the designs, which was really cool, as I was able to quickly add the feedback I was getting from the meetings to the UI. Once this was done, I continued to meet with the pot. customers (and also doing followups to the previous group) - this time showing them the "final" designs of the platform.

During each meeting I was actively asking for feedback + showing them the roadmap I am planning to deliver.

For the first 30 meetings, I always tried to end on this question:

"How valuable would this tool be to you?"

• 1: Not at all
• 2: Maybe, but not really
• 3: It would be if it had a few extra features
• 4: It's cool, I would like to test it
• 5: It's exactly what I was looking for, I want to buy it now

This allowed me to steer the direction of the conversation. If somebody mentioned 4 or 5, I was telling them about the early-bird pricing and more details on the timeline. If he said 3, I asked for details.

I got a lot of 4's, some 3's, a handful of 5's and one or two 2's. Even if somebody gave me a rating of 4-5 I did not automatically put them on the lead list. I only did that if they said they are considering it.

When I had the designs (second 30+ meetings), I gradually stopped asking this question, but if I felt this was a tool that solved their issues/was valuable to them, I let them know about the pricing + early-bird price.

You might also ask how did I get the meetings and to keep it short: cold-linkedin'ing (same as cold-calling but on Linkedin). I spent 1 hour every day messaging targeted accounts with different variations of this text:

"Hello, I am working on a partnership management tool. It will be ready soon, but I can still add some tweaks before the launch. I would love a chance to present you the designs - I want to make it as useful as possible for people who work with partnerships. Would you find some time for me?"

Around 30% accepted the connection, between 2-7% agreed to a meeting (depending on the week).

Hope this is useful.

P.S. If you are in the market for a PRM (Partner Relationship Management) tool, please visit partnerplace.io and sign up for the waiting-list. The early-bird price is still available till end of April.