Ask HN: How do you convince customers to pay you before creating the product? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How do you convince customers to pay you before creating the product?

9 pointsalinalex8 comments

I read and heard about examples of businesses started by selling (i.e. people paying you actual money) a product before writing a single line of code. For example, in this video -> https://vimeo.com/74338272, Jason Cohen says that he found 50 people who paid him for a solution he did not even start to create it. I'm wondering how is that possible? I find it hard to believe it and I would love to know if you managed to do that or know real life examples.

Thanks!

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I think we often forget that we pay up front for a lot of things before we get them, it's more common than we realise.

There are different reasons we pay up front for things. Some times it's because of exclusivity as a guarantee on limited space - like with concert tickets, holidays, transport, events services like catering and venue hire. We expect to pay up front to guarantee a spot at that time & date.

Other times it's for early-access or preferential treatment. For example pre-orders like books & DVDs, early access to games, DLC & kickstarter exclusive rewards.

The second route fits the software model better.

If you discuss business problems with people they may insist that they have a particular pain point. Getting them to put a price on that pain being solved makes them consider the value of it.

If a solution is truly needed they will be convincing you to build it by putting their money upfront. In return they can help shape the product and features and get either a preferential rate or level of support.

Pre-selling can be win-win.

I think the question is premised in a way that sort of misses the mark. Outside of the huckster to grifter spectrum, it's less a matter of a person convincing people to pay than it is a matter of the proposed product convincing people to pay. Or to put it another way, if people can't wait to give you money, you might have a good idea for a product.

it depends on customer's level of pain.

I'm currently working on a solution which many potential customers suggested they will test it right away once it's ready, and promised to get me 10 more customers in order to encourage me to work on it full time.

However, I did not get paid yet before the product is ready.

You need to find a solution where it improves the productivity of a business or a person by 10 folds.

for exmaple, if cars are not invented yet, and you promised a farmer with the invention of the truck, so they can take their produce to the city 10 times faster, and increase their productivity and revenue by 10 times. in this case, they will pay you to develop the "truck"

Thanks for your answer, bedros. How did you come with the idea? Did you first talk to business owners from a market you chose and derived the idea from talking with them?

I got my idea after talking to my dentist, she has a problem that takes too much time to finish in the office, and her dentist software cannot do it, so she needs something that works along her existing software and solves the problem.

just talk to people and try to solve their everyday pain.

May I ask about the problem you're trying to solve? I'm building something for dentists as well.

Specifically, an easy to use patient education and oral investigation suite. (My email is in my profile if you'd like to chat offline).

Yes, its rather common. What are you selling? Lets see if your product is a good fit.

Easy. It's called crowd-funding.

But, once you've set up your Kickstarter campaign, remember to come back on HN and announce your product in the present tense, as if it actually exists now.

[it's what every other fucker does!]

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