There is no better time than now.

If you have already done the customer validation and figured out your value prop then the next step would be to build a quick and dirty landing page on something like instapage or leadpages, direct people/testers to this page, and make sure that your copy is clear, the benefit/value prop is easily understood, and that your main CTA is making sense.

At the same time, since you are building your clickable prototype (I assume on a tool like invision), take the same user tester through your 'mock app' and get their feedback.

One you've done this at least ten times (you should be able to do this in a day), you are ready to get a pre-registration page up, direct some traffic to it, and hopefully see people request early access to your tool. this will buy you some time to get your app up and running. And believe me when I say this, it does not have to be perfect right now, just needs to work and solve the pain you've identified already.

You should also look at bolting a tool like Intercom on the backend of your app to guide your new users, provide them a quick visual tour, and collect their early feedback.

Like Elon Musk says, be bold, take risks, expect to fail but do it anyways.

Best of luck!
- Loic

Hi,

interesting problem for sure. As Jon eluded to in his response, you probably want to ask yourself the following question: "How well do I really know our customers". I would recommend that you think about your ideal customers and answer the following questions:
- what value they're looking to gain
- what features they think are most important
- what they're most willing to pay

Without knowing what your ideal buyer needs and wants, it is difficult to set the right pricing strategy or understand their willingness to pay for your product. You may find different buyer segment by doing this research, and that's ok. This data will help you create a tiered approach to your pricing where you package the features that are the most important to our buyer personas (and that they would be willing to pay for)

Once you know this, one thing you may consider is doing a small user testing experiment on your new packaging, then A/B test it on your website.

This whole process is called 'value-based pricing' and this how you get to increase your average ARR per client.

Happy to talk to you more about this.
- Loic

Hi,

Totally agree with Jeff as well. I have been scaling software as a service product for the past 10 years and most experts will agree with me when I say that you need to get to 100 paying clients before you can really say you have a your MVP as Jeef explained (i.e. that has market value and fair potential).

Where do you start? By getting the first 10
Right now, as you are probably experiencing already, it is all about hustling, talking to ideal customers, showing your product, getting their feedback, implementing their ideas into your MVP, and doing this over and over until you get to 10 paying clients. Then you can start growth hacking and content marketing activities based on this early success.

Also, selling over the phone is great, but if you can meet these customers face to face, that's even better. You can't really build a relationship over the phone, at least not as good as in person. This step will help you build champions/ brand ambassadors, that will hopefully spread the word about your product, give you great testimonial, and agree to a case study (maybe a video one next time you meet them in person)

Nobody wants to be a guinea pig and most buyers will want to see demonstrated value before buying a newish product/service. Use these early customers as your social proof, and let their success stories do the selling for you.

Not sure about your price point, or even if you have a SaaS product. If you tell me more I can give you some quick metrics and pointers to help you along the way.

Best of luck!
- Loic

Hi,

I run the Marketing team at a SaaS company specialized in financial services solutions. We have a lean team of 6 people, including myself:

- VP Growth
- Marketing Manager
- Channel Partner Manager
- Content & Social Coordinator
- Paid Search Specialist
- Graphic Designer

Everyone is focused on 1 metric: MQL

Hope this helps
- Loic

Hi,

I work for a FinTech saas company and we A/B all over our website. Not sure if you have done this already, but do you have a clearly defined ideal customer (buyer persona)? I mean a vivid picture of what your ideal client is like? where they are located (if that's relevant), their buying pattern, what are the most come pain points/issues they need assistance with (i.e. how your product/service helps them), age group, social demographics...

This alone will give you a lot of information on who to target, and how they would find your services in the first place.

You can then start to create content around these audiences (compeling headlines, relevant lead magnet, ...) and serve these content to different segment of your visitors based on traffic source, or key demographics as explained above.

Hope this helps
- Loic

Hi there,

I have been scaling software as a service products for the past 10 years and I totally get where you are coming from. My current company is bootstrapped and on track to crack 10mil in ARR. Never had to get any VC money!

Now to answer your question about scale... Most experts will agree with me when I say that you need to get to 100 paying clients before you can really say you have a viable product (i.e. that has market value and fair potential).

Where do you start? By getting the first 10

Right now, as you are probably experiencing already, it is all about hustling, talking to ideal customers, showing your product, getting their feedback, implementing their ideas into your MVP, and doing this over and over until you get to 10 paying clients. Then you can start growth hacking and content marketing activities based on this early success.

Also, selling over the phone is great, but if you can meet these customers face to face, that's even better. You can't really build a relationship over the phone, at least not as good as in person. This step will help you build champions/ brand ambassadors, that will hopefully spread the word about your product, give you great testimonial, and agree to a case study (maybe a video one next time you meet them in person)

Nobody wants to be a guinea pig and most buyers will want to see demonstrated value before buying a newish product/service. Use these early customers as your social proof, and let their success stories do the selling for you.

Not sure about your price point, or even if you have a SaaS product. If you tell me more I can give you some quick metrics and pointers to help you along the way.

Best of luck!
- Loic