We validated our idea and reached $1k MRR
We spent months building a product and then 6 months trying to market it and got 0 sales.
We even spent $900 on ads... But nothing.
It was actually a well-built product, the problem was just that we hadn't validated the idea at all. We had no confirmation that there was a market for it.
Eventually we had to abandon it.
Our next idea was the complete opposite. We reached $1k MRR in two months and things are going really well. Here's exactly how we validated the idea:
Step one: Talking to potential users
- We had a pretty well defined idea but we didn't want to make the same mistake again.
- We wanted to solve a problem that founders had, it was a problem we understood intimately.
- So we made a Reddit post on r/SaaS and r/indiehackers asking founders to answer a few questions and in return we would give them feedback on their project.
- Here's one of the posts (4 months ago as you can see): https://www.reddit.com/r/indiehackers/comments/1ea1cpd/lets_exchange_feedback/
- This got us in touch with 8-10 founders who were willing to answer our survey.
- We asked questions about pain points related to the problem and tried to get an idea if they were willing to adopt the solution we had in mind.
- The responses were positive so we had the green light to start building
Step two: Building the MVP
- This is the easy part. We knew what we should focus on from the feedback so we let that guide our building.
- We built fast. 30-45 days for the MVP.
- We made sure that our MVP actually solved the problem we had identified.
- That's it. Time to market this MVP and see if we can get some users.
Step three: Marketing and collecting feedback
- First we set a clear goal. We wanted as much feedback as possible so we were going to need active users. 20 active users was our goal.
- Then we selected 2 marketing channels we believed in. Since we wanted to reach founders we focused on X and Reddit.
- Then we set daily volume targets. For example, post 50 replies on relevant posts on X and create 5 new posts.
- So we had our daily targets, meaning we knew exactly what to do every day. We thought it would be reasonable to expect that we can hit our goal of 20 active users in 2 weeks.
- Then we just executed our marketing plan. It was easy, because we knew what to do every day. No questions.
- Two weeks later we were at 100 users (and it was exactly 100, what are the odds). We had hit our goal.
That was the validation process for Buildpad. From there on, all we had to do was improve the product based on feedback and continue marketing and that took us to $1k MRR in two months.
I hope our journey can inspire some of you to not give up and to follow a solid process for building your product.
I'm happy to offer my input in the comments if you have any questions.