From SaaS idea validation in 1 day to 150+ Beta signups | Hacker News Reader

From SaaS idea validation in 1 day to 150+ Beta signups

rocketchart.co

This appears to be long-form ad copy. It's characterized by extremely short paragraphs (often one sentence), one after another, and a winding story the reader must wade through to get to the payoff promised in the headline.

I can't stand this format and associate it with scams. But many prominent marketers consider it the key to their success. The authors of the OP appear to fall into the latter category.

After 1/3 of the way into the article, I don't know:

- what RocketChart is or what it does

- how the authors got 150 beta signups

I have, however, gained numerous insights into the emotional state of the author, friends, and family, and have been blasted with memes from here to Timbuktu.

If the article isn't long form ad copy, then it could use a thorough edit. Start with the actionable part and give me a high-level view of it in the first paragraph.

However, I strongly suspect otherwise.

The author themselves said this was their first time writing long form. I chalk most of your complaints up to this and the fact that english is his second language.

I give some allowance for ESL, but I refuse to believe he made it all the way through school without having to write "long form," aka a book report or something.

My favorite part is that in a post purportedly describing how simple the initial process of starting a business was for him, he starts off with "Let's face it, launching a business is hard." Well then why would I read this?

Props to you for sticking with it, but you can't say you weren't warned!

I mean it's obviously a marketing piece. It's a blog post on a SAAS website. What else can you expect?

Completely in agreement with you. Also, I find it difficult to find a "true" or "real" 150 beta signups in such a short time. Typically takes more time and development to get to that level depending on the product.

I find it extremely annoying.

Actually, this seems to be a good way to improve the article. I will check how I can modify it to provide insights and actionable tips at the beginning :)

This is a prime example why people don't trust people in finance, and more recently, in tech.

Imagine signing up for a service like this and the first interaction with it is a lie. How can you trust some of your company's most important financial data with a "partner" like this?

Disclosure: I run a financial modeling software company.

I work for a small startup and have never felt right about "fake it till you make it", sometimes it just goes too far.

- Lie about user count

- Lie about product features

- Lie about your products existence?

Enough with the lies...

It's pretty true, he could have been more honest on the introductory post, and probably had succeeded the same. Except it would have felt like a more genuine interaction.

“We have a SaaS that is running well (staff scheduling) since a couple of years” … “I hadn’t a SaaS "running well", nor a real product ^^”

"Just before turning off the light, I sent a message to my brother. I asked him to like my post to get a bit of visibility."

Ultimately, I don't think these things make a lick of difference. But it seems so common for "growth hackers" to do kinda sleazy crap like this. Why's this type of behavior so common?

Because the world rewards this type of scammy behavior. It's no different than legit blockchain projects being overlooked for vaporware projects selling pie in the sky ideas that they know they can't live up to. (I used this example because I work in the industry and it kills me to constantly see this behavior being rewarded)

I agree. Some call this marketing. De Beers telling everyone that diamonds are a girls best friend.

How do people rationalize this? When people start out by lying to prospective customers, do they have a plan for when they will start telling the truth instead?

Because people feel a need to do something, anything. And in their mind, even if it probably doesn't help, it can't hurt.

What's so sleazy about asking your brother to like your Facebook post?

What's so sleazy about asking for feedback on a fake product mockup?

Who exactly is hurt by this?

I don’t think it is sleazy to ask a friend or a family member to like a Facebook post.

I don’t think it is sleazy to ask for feedback on a product mockup.

I do think there is an issue with claiming that the mockup is already a product that has been developed and is in use - there is no need to mislead in this way.

Definitely I am way too old (and grumpy) for this kind of stuff, so I will refrain from commenting on the ethics of the procedures reported, but I would be curious on how the "plan" is to get to the $10k of Monthly Recurring Revenue.

I mean is that 1 customer billed 10,000 bucks per month, 10,000 customers billed 12 bucks per year or (more likely) something in the middle?

I think they are just being honest, this has been followed by many many companies before them. Nothing wrong with advertising and getting the clients then building product from that point. Its all free anyway, its not like they are taking people’s money upfront.

>Its all free anyway, its not like they are taking people’s money upfront.

More than "free" right now it is either "null" or "negative".

If the non-product (in Beta stage) is given to the beta-testers for free, it is actually "null", Beta testers get (for free) an incomplete/unusable/unuseful product. (we are talking of a "serious" product that in perspective is to be used to manage "serious" matters, i.e. company money)

If the non-product (in Beta stage) is given to the beta-testers (for free) AND it is (or even if it was at the time the testing began) in early Beta (as this seems the status from the narrative) it is actually "negative", beta-testers are spending or have already spent their time/knowledge/experience on actually making the product (not materially, but providing ideas, asking for needed features, reporting bugs and errors, suggesting enhancements or changes, etc.).

So not only the testers have spent time (if not money) on it, they actually made a bet on the whole stuff, not even knowing if the product would have been ever delivered, let alone the actual future (monthly) cost for it.

Making a one page site to 'validate your idea' by getting 'sign ups' is more a measure of how willing people are to hand over their email address than any proof that your startup could work. How many of those people will turn in to actual real money sales is the only metric that counts.

If you can get 150 people to preorder and pay an actual fee based on an idea and a mockup then I'll be impressed. And it is possible...

A lot of negative comments here, so I'll offer my 2c.

I agree that their initial post was deceptive, and inexcusably so. But the spammy tactic I think is outweighed by their total devotion to understanding their customers. Maintaining over 300 simultaneous conversations, just to get an insight into their users is a herculean, and praiseworthy, effort.

The takeaways and tips are useful too, if you're thinking about starting a bootstrapped company. They're not pitched as "do this and you'll succeed", they're pitched as "here's what we did, you do you", which I appreciate. I'll borrow some and ignore others when I start my own venture.

EDIT: curious why I'm being downvoted

Maybe, you were downvoted because you didn't criticize our article as all those genius guys are doing? ^^

Anyway, glad to see some useful comments that finally identify the bright side of this :)

Thanks for your 2c

At first I thought it was sort of a minor thing to lie about having a company that has been in operation for years but I think it's actually pretty significant here. He's pitching a product that doesn't exist yet by saying that it's worth everyone's time and money because his company has already been using it with success. That's just not true and not really fair to do to your would be first customers.

I must be missing something. The product looks a like a cloud accounting software.

Why does this not new concept need validation?

1. It is their own take on accounting software. You make it sound like it’s silly to need validation because the category exists. But every business ever needs validation. 2. They are new to the market (and seems like they are new to business in general) and need to learn about it

"hey guys, we're a successful company with a real product" - theranos

I wonder if having a name so similar to RocketChat will be problematic for you. Currently, Google even suggests correcting searches for RocketChart to RocketChat.

Seemingly well funded UK cashflow management tool fluidly [1] also validates the concept I suppose, although I'd guess that they (Fludily) are solving for what the user _needs_ and not what they _want_ (cashflow predictions vs cashflow charts)

[1] https://fluidly.com/

If your customer is president of each country, you can only have around 200 signups.

Also, the sky is blue. Bam! Qed!

Someday a savvy generation of consumers are going to catch on to these scammy “validation” schemes and it will only get harder and harder to actually get people’s attention as they grow to ignore anything that doesn’t demonstrate something more than a screenshot or video or a slick website.

I am surprised people are disclosing their financials to third party that easily. plaintext accounting isn't very hard to use, yet it is much more powerful and safer.

There's a bit in the article where they directly ask for a CSV dump of transactions, only to get denied. What I thought was somewhat odd/ironic/funny/etc was that the thought of "hey give us your financials in a csv" was untenable, but effectively doing the same through a banking API was OK.

This might work for B2C products, but B2B is too niche. I have very specific people I need to get in touch with.

I'm not sure what you mean, the product showcased is B2B. Most (all?) of their clients are other startups.

Are those startups listed on their page actually using them? Is this something you were able to independently verify?

I find it extremely hard to believe anything coming from people who have lied to their customers from day one.

Nice way to validate the concept there. Good stuff.

Wow this is a good article! Ill try this if I ever can come up with an idea (hopefully lol).

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