(This article is part of the MicroConf 2015 Recap. Want to explore more talks from the event? Go back to the Recap Hub)
Main Concept
Pre-selling lets you immediately move from problem → solution and sell — in one 30-minute conversation
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Three Key Points
- Pick a market
- Interview the market, identify pain
- Pre-sell the solution before you write a line of code
Talk Recap
How to Start a SaaS
- Not a generalized recipe for success
- May not work for you, your market
- Will offer practical advice (“from the trenches”)
How to find a profitable business idea
- Select target market
- Contact the market
- Select the problem
- Pre-sell the solution
- Develop the smallest solution
Selecting Your Market
- Create a list of industries
- Criteria
- At least 2,000 – 5,000 industries
- Affinity for the industry
- Ideal markets => niche/obscure
- Contactable
Contacting Your Market
- Excel list of people to contact
- Send emails to your customers and schedule phone calls to talk to them
- Ask questions to find pain points (and shut up, let them talk)
- Wave the magic wand question (magic question) — ask what they would fix if they could waive a magic wand
Selecting The Problem
- List all problems that people are experiencing
- Focus on the most painful, least complex problem
Pre-sell your solution
- Schedule the call
- Review the pain
- Present the solution
- Make an offer (ask to buy)
- Rinse and repeat (minimum 3-5 people)
- Start developing the product)
Next Level™ Tips
- Use conferences to turbocharge this process
- Incredible pace of learning
- Rapid feedback from people
- Meet early adopters
- Follow up after the conference
- Smaller is better than larger, more intimate settings are better
What Worked
- Recording + reviewing the calls
- Getting specific and personal on the call
- Staying in touch after the fact
My Stats
- 1 Market → 174 emails
- 174 emails → connected with 32 people
- 32 people → 52 calls
- 52 calls → 8 problems
- 1 problem → $4,200
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Speaker’s Slides
Recommended Resources
Links to Speaker’s Websites
- Twitter: @pawelwb
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[mc_tweet]How to Start a SaaS Business with No Idea, In Any Market (@pawelwb’s presentation)[/mc_tweet]
(This article is part of the MicroConf 2015 Recap. Want to explore more talks from the event? Go back to the Recap Hub)