My new SaaS rule: it should make sense with zero public signups
I’ve made the classic mistake of building something in private and assuming I would figure out distribution after launch, and I’ve also seen much better builders make the same mistake.
There is no distribution playbook that works for everyone: audiences, markets, timing and communication styles are different, and the conditions behind someone else’s success are never rarely fully repeatable.
So, for my latest product, I followed a simpler rule: it had to create value before being launched as a SaaS. I built it around a recurring problem I kept encountering across different client projects.
This doesn’t prove product-market fit, and it definitely doesn’t solve distribution, but I find this distinction useful:
- Existing client demand can validate the problem
- Repeated usage can validate the workflow
- Strangers paying for it validate distribution and repeatability
At the moment, I only have confidence in the first of those. For me, this is still a healthier starting point than spending months building something whose survival depends entirely on finding an audience after launch.
Have you taken a similar approach? Did it help you build a sustainable product, or did it eventually turn into a productized service?
(Disclosure: the product is wiregum.com, a lightweight commerce backend that wires your CMS to Stripe)
Client demand can hide a service subsidy. The clean test is whether three clients can reach the same useful outcome from the default product without you translating requirements, touching setup, or rescuing the workflow. Log every intervention during onboarding. If the intervention list shrinks across customers, you are productizing; if it stays bespoke, you have a good service with software inside it.
That’s a great point, thank you!
I like the distinction between validating the problem and validating distribution. One thing I'd watch is whether solving the same problem for clients reflects a scalable market or simply a shared context. Those can look similar early on but lead to very different businesses.
100% agree, that’s exactly what I’m trying to find out now.
Hopefully the former 🤞
That's exactly the part that caught my attention.
I do have a perspective on how I'd think about validating that, but it depends on the specifics of what you're building rather than a general startup rule. I'd rather explain it in that context than oversimplify it here.
If you're interested, what's the best email to reach you on?
Strong rule. "Strangers paying" before SaaS packaging is the part most builders skip — they launch first, then discover distribution was the product.
wiregan sounds like it passed the repeat-workflow test already. Curious: when you went from client work → product, did you still need to hunt new conversations in communities (Reddit etc.), or did existing client network carry it?
I ask because that's the gap I keep seeing — validated workflow, but founders still burn 30–45 min/day manually searching forums for the next stranger.
Built a discovery tool for that (scores + why matched, no auto-replies). If wiregan's next growth is community-led, happy to show a sample mapping on a short call.
I definitely need to grow WireGum’s reach manually, through posts like this one. I don’t have a large community behind me yet, but I’d like to build one gradually and organically.
Having a few existing clients means I don’t have to rely on that from day one, but distribution is definitely my weak spot. It’s something I need to work on, including pushing myself to communicate more with the outside world (:
I’m not looking to use any tools at the moment, but feel free to share a link to your product and I’ll take a look!
Sure — here's a ~60s demo of how it works:
https://www.loom.com/share/5b178932cc9149f1ac30970e179e819b
Short version: you set product + pain phrases + subreddits → daily scored threads where ICP describes the pain (discovery, not auto-posting).
If wiregan growth will touch communities at all, happy to do a 10-min call and map how I'd set it for your niche — facts over pitch. Either way, take a look first.