Start sales without a landing page?
Hello fellow hackers.
I'm working on a Slack App for remote teams.
I don't have a landing page yet. I'm thinking it would be more valuable to try to sell to potential customers vs spending time on building a landing page. Does it make sense to have sales without any website or a landing page?
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Yes! Yes it does!
For every single product I've sold and company I've started, I made at least the first 5 sales with no landing page.
In fact, I think it's almost impossible to make a good landing page without having made at least 5-10 sales already. The exception being when you are your own target customer.
Here's an old podcast episode I recorded with a fellow IHer who made it all the way to $100k in sales without any landing page at all...
And here's a little tool I put together to help you work out if it's time to set up a landing page yet (or not).
Good luck!
@louisswiss I agree with you. Infact I see you repeatedly telling people to start with sales.
Take a cue from your thoughts I started with initial landing page at https://nocodesheets.carrd.co and started sales.
(I have had some people on IH raising concerns with this approach of selling without a landing page/domain but it just depends)
Absolutely agree on this - it's almost impossible to make a good landing page without having made at least 5-10 sales already.
In other words, you always change the landing page after having a few paying customers because you get a better idea after talking to people. In similar lines, after you speak to a few people or made a few sales, it would be easier to build a landing page.
Thank you for sharing your podcast. I'll listen to it
Are you talking about really getting money or just promise to pay later / collecting emails?
In our case, its Pay later/Collecting emails.
We started working with a few people who wants to use https://nocodesheets.carrd.co
But we have a working product in Alpha stages. So, its easier to talk to people.
Ideally really getting money. Or - at the very least - a signed contract/credit card on file committing them to pay when the product is ready.
This has worked for me so far with...
I think one thing also worth pointing out is that you can have a functioning product and make sales for it without needing a landing page (yet).
Well, if you don't have a product yet, and getting money, can it be considered as a fraud? Which SaaS products were you able to sell without having a product?
Legally speaking, no. It's only fraud if you intend to deceive the customer.
Makes sense if you stop and think about it really. People preorder (and pay in advance for) products all the time before anything has been built...
The only thing stopping indie hackers doing the same thing in SaaS is just their own limited mindset.
In my own case, I always offer a money back guarantee (valid from purchase date until they've actually been using the product for 30 days).
That way - at normal SaaS prices - there's literally no risk for the customer. And i get a solid indication of them actually being serious about needing the product.
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As far as SaaS goes, I did this for my first SaaS business, Gymhopper.
And for an early version of PostPerk (which I ended up pivoting into a completely different product, and those first 5 customers either got the new product or their money back - with no hard feelings).
Well, right, but to be honest, it's a different story and always requires a really big social capital. You can't presale Teslas if you are not Elon Musk. You can't presale houses if you don't have any building history. You can't collect money on Kickstarter if you don't provide some proofs of concepts, videos, descriptions etc.
So, do you mean you presold this SaaS? Did you really convince people to buy your product without having any product and even landing page? Were they total strangers? Which problem did your product solve?
I'm asking so many questions because as for me I should have a huuuuge problem to give money a stranger promising to solve it (even with a money-back guarantee).
Yes absolutely, a lot fellow won't agree, because they don't know how to sell. If you solve their problem, they will give you money even without landing pagre.
Hello, I think it's totally possible, actually you see kind of like my target audience, could you visit this thread:
https://www.indiehackers.com/post/please-i-need-some-hate-for-my-idea-landing-page-e66e5312f4
And tell me what you think and if you would use a tool like that?
👍 I'll check it out today and let you know what I think
@4th_roommate Yes! It would absolutely make sense to try selling to potential customers. You can create a simple typeform and add a stripe paywall to it to validate your idea. Once you have 5-10customers then start building the product.
Your typeform can serve as a landing page. You don't need to have a website. The trick here is to go to the right audience and share the form there. You can go to specific LinkedIn groups, bid for specific keywords and leverage twitter.
Validation != selling.
Agreed. Validation =! selling. But validation paves the path for sales.
Your landing page doesn't have to be amazing from day 1. I'd spend a few hours getting something up. It's so easy nowadays. If anything, it will help gather your thoughts and refine your sales pitch. Expect to tweak your landing page a LOT after talking to customers, though.
Hey Steve,
Of course you can sell without a Landing page. If you already have potential customers, go make your first $ !
Good luck with your product
thank you 🙏
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Hey Zencentric :)
I'm not talking about that, no.
Maybe I"ve not expressed myself correctly.
If so, please don't call it "selling".