SAAS Startup, $100K+/mo, $1M+/valuation (ASK AWAY!)

[DanC]

A little late to the party, but something I've wondered about the pre-selling phase:

When trying to pre-sell, are you only speaking to decision makers? What do you do when the person who likes your product needs to kick it up to his/her boss for approval?

Talk to their boss.

You really want to talk directly to the person who will be making the decision so that if they have any objections you can cover them in real time rather than through a proxy.

If thats a regular thing in your market where you don't talk to the decision maker (shouldn't be in most and def not in small businesses) you would probably want to get the person you are talking to really bought in, so they can make the best possible presentation to their boss and effectively sell them for you.

 

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[randomnumber314]

a lot of people get stuck on trying to perfect their product before release, how refined was your product before you started selling?

 

[DanC]

I have a 4 person team that's working on a product that will make life better for people with reading disabilities. Right now we're working on developing a prototype, working on customer development, and building a website to sell pre-orders. What would be your advice on pricing? Should we sell pre-orders at full retail price or should we give people a discount, perhaps sell the pre-orders at cost? I would appreciate any advice you (or anyone else on here) could offer.

Edit: In case it's relevant, our product is going to retail at around $250.

Hey Payden, I'm not to sure about selling to consumers we only do B2B. But usually for early signups you would offer some kind of incentive like a discount or bonus (like kickstarter). I'd research everyone else in the market re what they are charging. Also ask your potential customers what they would pay.

 

[James Fake]

I have a 4 month runway (living on savings) till I need to be producing $2,500 a month to support my wife and kids.

I've been doing web SaaS apps for a long time.. 4 months is gonna be .0001% impossible to get one going and making that much money. I don't even think most beginners can get a minimum viable app in that time frame.

 

[randomnumber314]

If you are going to cold email, 147 is probably too small of a number imho.

That sounds like a lot of work. I'll just switch to the next shiny thing.

 

[DanC]

Awesome interview. Thanks Dan, Dane, Misha. Thanks MJ for sharing.

My takeaways:

Your welcome and yep I think you nailed the takeaways.

 

[MoneyDoc]

Nice to have you here Dan.

 

[limitup]

Right on DanC, welcome. I love the SaaS model myself and after a few years "vacation" I'm working on one as well. Great model if you can just get traction.

 

[tafy]

I think in the new foundation classes you are actually banned from coding until you have presold some people

I would be screwed then lol

 

[Iwokeup]

I think that the key here is to make sure that you can (relatively easily) reach the decision maker. This is the key to the whole thing, IMHO.

 

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[DanC]

I think that the key here is to make sure that you can (relatively easily) reach the decision maker. This is the key to the whole thing, IMHO.

Yep you want to make things easy on yourself as much as possible.

 

[Tobore]

Thanks for the AMA @DanC

My question is, was your idea extracting process done in your country or in the US?

If in the US, how was it like calling prospective customers from another country and gaining their trust.

In all honesty, I'm around the path of idea extraction but the market base in my country of stay seem not be conversant with SAAS and I intend taking it over to a place with a good market base.

What would be your opinion/advice due to your experience and coming from a likely situation?

 

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[DanC]

I'm curious about your initial email response rate. I know it's going to be different for every circumstance. I have emailed 147 prospect this afternoon, just wondering what sort of response rate I can expect. If I don't get a good response to that I'm going to just visit a bunch of offices. Hopefully I don't come off too strong, I know that I can make their work lives easier.

How many responses did you get? Include links in your signature about you, like your linkedin profile etc so they know who they are dealing with.

 

[csalvato]

Zero so far. I'll try that next round. Not giving up that easy!

It goes faster when you buy lists or write a scraper.

 

[HowToMillion]

Hello @DanC, thanks a lot for this AMA and congratulations on your success. Before I saw this thread btw, I am in the middle of something and actually pre-sold(not much though).. so after I saw this thread, I re-thought and send out a bunch of e-mails and called. If not ignored, most of the responses are negative, I might be reading between the lines but I'm almost quite sure they are a little bit scared I might accidentally disclose their ideas and losing their competitive advantage. How do I erase those fears and doubts right from the start? or do I?

 

[Ses]

When did you realise your plan was going to work out? Right after cold emailing and facebook? Is your plan even working out and/or do you have other plans?

 

[Kingmaker]

Any techniques that worked for you for cold calling business owners without feeling like you're wasting their time?

 

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[Payden]

I have a 4 person team that's working on a product that will make life better for people with reading disabilities. Right now we're working on developing a prototype, working on customer development, and building a website to sell pre-orders. What would be your advice on pricing? Should we sell pre-orders at full retail price or should we give people a discount, perhaps sell the pre-orders at cost? I would appreciate any advice you (or anyone else on here) could offer.

Edit: In case it's relevant, our product is going to retail at around $250.

 

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[K.Y.]

• did your presells cover the entire first run of the development?
• how did you find reliable developers? (I think dane provides a list of good ones?)
• how did you end up picking real estate as your niche?

 

[10lapsdown]

Hey Dan,

I was just looking at the Foundation and listening to a few of the podcasts. Obviously you found the course beneficial. Was there a broad spectrum of ideas for different niches/markets or did you find that real estate featured prominently?
Did you have any issues picking up a phone and making those initial calls? Like, nerves, confidence, etc?

Cheers

 

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[Andy Black]

you are actually banned from coding until you have presold some people

^^^ Haha. Awesome. Love this.

Thanks for doing the AMA Dan.

 

[Ses]

This is 12 hours late, but how did you deal with spam filters when cold emailing people?

 

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[Tregan]

Hi Dan,

Thanks for doing this AMA!

Regarding The Foundation, is it likely you would have started a SAAS without going through the program? I've been interested in their program for a while and think the community is the strongest piece of their model. Thoughts?

 

[Tregan]

Where do you see your business at in the next year, 3 years, 5 years?

 

[Solrac]

Thanks for doing this AMA Dan. Regarding actual software, when you encountered problems you didn't know how to solve in the software itself, where was the first place you went to for answers?

 

[Tregan]

Thanks for doing this AMA Dan. Regarding actual software, when you encountered problems you didn't know how to solve in the software itself, where was the first place you went to for answers?

^This

Dan I'd like to know your process as well. I assume you pulled from The Foundation community?

 

[HowToMillion]

^This

Dan I'd like to know your process as well. I assume you pulled from The Foundation community?

https://thefoundation.com/podcast/episode81

 

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[LouieLouie]

Dan,

How long did it take to get through your idea exaction?

I plan on following the foundation model, not having the $ to pay for the program I am going it alone. I know this handicaps me some but I simply don't have the cash.

The question that I am trying to answer and I would value your experienced insight.

I have a 4 month runway (living on savings) till I need to be producing $2,500 a month to support my wife and kids.

Should I go straight into Saas / idea extraction or is the level of difficulty and time to build a Saas bus. great enough that I should first find a simpler way of generating cash to extend my runway.

For a little background,

I have built a few 7 figure a year business. But they where traditional service based offline type.
I have been self employed and bus owner my entire life (35 yr old) except for a few short stints working a job.

Thanks in advance for your consideration.

PS: I simply want to model someone but want to make sure I am not trying to accomplish the impossible with my short runway

 

[Guest]

It took us over a year from starting to get a paying customer (counting before we joined the foundation and after).

I've been on the forum long enough to know better but I click on the thread because I was attracted to the 100K/month. Thank you Dan for your replies and reminding me that it takes work to build anything successful.

 

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[randomnumber314]

I'm curious about your initial email response rate. I know it's going to be different for every circumstance. I have emailed 147 prospect this afternoon, just wondering what sort of response rate I can expect. If I don't get a good response to that I'm going to just visit a bunch of offices. Hopefully I don't come off too strong, I know that I can make their work lives easier.