Ask HN: How to convince partner to start selling SaaS app now? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How to convince partner to start selling SaaS app now?

3 pointsJonoBB3 comments

I've been co-developing a new SaaS app over the past 6 months. The app has gone through private beta (with relatively good results), and we are now in open beta.

I am trying to convince my partner that we need to start marketing NOW. However, he has never done this kind of thing before, and he wants to keep delaying for that "one more feature that we HAVE to have".

I know that this is just wrong on so many levels, but I am meeting resistance with comments like:

  "Just want the features to enhance the marketing."
  "Want to be able to push hard with confidence"
  "When we turn the tap on we want key things in place"

I've gone round the houses on this one with him a few times, and he is so stuck in this mindset. In all other respects he is actually a great partner, but I need to stop this nonsense once and for all.

Are there any authoritative articles that I can give him to read? He wont bother reading a whole book, so anything short and to the point is really needed.

Check out the StartUpsForTheRestOfUs.com podcasts . . . there are a few episodes on shipping with an initial feature set to start getting feedback from paying customers . . so you can see what real customers want/are using before you spend time on features/additions that might not even be useful to paying customers.

There are also some episodes on marketing, SEO and building an email list . . . I would recommend getting started right away on a website/landing page and building an email list. If the feature he wants is a 1 or 2 week thing maybe you can start ramping up marketing while the feature is being completed.

Check out articles/podcasts with patio11 and amy hoy as well . . . they are all fans of launching early to validate your idea, get feedback from paying customers and start generating revenue.

Good luck with the launch.

Marketing takes calendar time to spin up. I don't think that's naturally intuitive to developers. It certainly wasn't to me.

Launching now won't suddenly bring Every Single Customer to your homepage tomorrow to notice that that one feature is missing and dismiss you forever. Rather, it will bring a few hundred people this week, four of which will ever make it far enough into the funnel to notice that feature (that they don't actually need).

Just pull the trigger today. Do it yourself if you like, and let your partner catch up with things like "add a way to process credit cards" later.

The quicker you get your thing out there, the sooner you start that long slow ramp towards profitability.

Good luck!

In theory you're always marketing. It's the level of marketing that you do that really ramps up "at the right time". More on this here: http://www.startuplessonslearned.com/2009/03/dont-launch.htm...

"The right time" is when you have product-market fit.

You saw you are in open beta - does that mean you (believe you) have achieved product-market fit? (Read this for help on figuring this out: http://venturebeat.com/2014/08/02/cloud-startup-product-mark...

If not, then perhaps the quibbling is about the wrong question to begin with.

With respect to feature pushing: Read the 2-3 pages worth in this link (upto figure 13-3), which may help with your argument> https://www.inkling.com/read/running-lean-ash-maurya-2nd/cha...

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