3 ms·

Ask HN: How to get people to buy/try my SaaS? [basic MVP done]

1 points by moomoo11 4y ago

I'm working on a process management software and I'm in the initial stages where I have a bare bones MVP ready. I have talked to a few people in the industry (a small manufacturing firm, couple of botique software firms) who liked the solution I'm proposing. I started working on it the start of this year, and now that I've built the MVP (super alpha version if you can call it that) on my own I want to get these people and others to try it out and give me some feedback. How do I go about this?

salimstartup 4y ago
Reach out to your personal network, qualify for the problem you are solving, present your solution, charge them (solving problems costs money), listen to feedback Since it is a B2B solution - don’t try too much seo, marketing, etc whatever else founders use
- moomoo11 4y ago
  thanks! Can you expand on your second point please? "don’t try too much seo, marketing, etc whatever else founders use"
  - verdverm 4y ago
    Don't pay for it. The space is crowded and you'd be wasting your money. What you need is to talk to a few people and then to iterate. Since you are still early, the goal is to get them to validate you are solving a problem, by showing. They don't need to use it, but if they ask to, then great, you are on to something. Make sure you have something hands on people can try without talking to you as well, and also make it very easy for them to send feedback and report bugs.
  - salimstartup 4y ago
    Someone replied already, I agree with that
Shinmon 4y ago
Been there before and it's not an easy task. We got lost in a lot of wishful thinking and misinterpreting our customer interview. "Looks interesting" is often a polite way to say "cool, but we don't need it". Imho, the first thing you really need to figure out is, if you are onto an actual problem that people have and are willing to pay for. I have built 2 MVPs before that nobody used in the end because we didn't do our homework in the pre-MVP explorative part of the journey. Talking to more people should be your number one priority at the moment. I wouldn't even pitch the solution in the beginning but start asking about their work, their roles, their problems etc. If there is a clear fit you may pitch/teaser your solution at the end. Contrary to @salimstartup, I would say marketing is definitely something you should do, but you shouldn't pay for it. Content marketing is really the way to go at the moment. Find out where your customers hang out (hackernews, reddit, medium, linkedin, twitter, ...) and post valuable content. Takes a lot of time but makes getting interviews with other people much easier and eventually should lead to (some) inbound leads/users as well.
- moomoo11 4y ago
  Thanks!!

1 points by moomoo11 4y ago

salimstartup 4y ago

Reach out to your personal network, qualify for the problem you are solving, present your solution, charge them (solving problems costs money), listen to feedback Since it is a B2B solution - don’t try too much seo, marketing, etc whatever else founders use

moomoo11 4y ago
thanks! Can you expand on your second point please? "don’t try too much seo, marketing, etc whatever else founders use"
- verdverm 4y ago
  Don't pay for it. The space is crowded and you'd be wasting your money. What you need is to talk to a few people and then to iterate. Since you are still early, the goal is to get them to validate you are solving a problem, by showing. They don't need to use it, but if they ask to, then great, you are on to something. Make sure you have something hands on people can try without talking to you as well, and also make it very easy for them to send feedback and report bugs.
- salimstartup 4y ago
  Someone replied already, I agree with that

Shinmon 4y ago

Been there before and it's not an easy task. We got lost in a lot of wishful thinking and misinterpreting our customer interview. "Looks interesting" is often a polite way to say "cool, but we don't need it". Imho, the first thing you really need to figure out is, if you are onto an actual problem that people have and are willing to pay for. I have built 2 MVPs before that nobody used in the end because we didn't do our homework in the pre-MVP explorative part of the journey. Talking to more people should be your number one priority at the moment. I wouldn't even pitch the solution in the beginning but start asking about their work, their roles, their problems etc. If there is a clear fit you may pitch/teaser your solution at the end. Contrary to @salimstartup, I would say marketing is definitely something you should do, but you shouldn't pay for it. Content marketing is really the way to go at the moment. Find out where your customers hang out (hackernews, reddit, medium, linkedin, twitter, ...) and post valuable content. Takes a lot of time but makes getting interviews with other people much easier and eventually should lead to (some) inbound leads/users as well.

moomoo11 4y ago
Thanks!!