The secret of shipping without a cost

Shipping SaaS costs a lot unless you've more than 100k followers on LinkedIn or X.

Even before you launch the product, there are multiple costs.

1. Hiring a developer ( $7,000/project ) unless you're the one.

2. Buying domains & hosting platforms ( minimum $50/mo )

3. Outreaching to validate the idea ( $100/mo )

These are the costs even before the launch of the project. After the launch, there are a ton of marketing costs, etc.

It's just super expensive without any guarantee of success.

But the question is how can we go without a cost and validate & launch the product with profit in hand?

Product Idea and how I'm planning to go without a cost

So recently, I got an Idea to build software to help founders launch their product on every famous launching site ( productHunt, Uneed, Microlaunch, etc...) from one platform with clear analytics - before the launch to find out the best time to schedule and after the launch to show the results.

Now, I've got the Idea but what's the Goal...

So the goal is to progress with this project without a single dollar spend.

After that, I created an Asana board to visualize my game plan, and here is how I'm going with this...

1) Validate the Idea before working on it.

Ask founders if they'll purchase such a product.

Where would you ask? - Our existing connections on LinkedIn, X, and Reddit ( best place ).

There are two types of answers, you can expect,

1. They'll say, yes it's a good idea and we would love to try this for our product launches.

2. It's not a good idea, and I will probably not use such software.

Out of these two answers,

If the 1st one is true - We'll proceed with this project.

If the 2nd one is true - We'll stop this project completely.

I assume the founders said, "Yes, they like the Idea and would pay to use it."

Now... Second step

2) Find a developer who can work with you as a co-founder.

Rather than putting more than 7k into developing MVP from an agency, better find a developer who could build such a project and add him as a co-founder. - That's exactly what I did for this project. :)

Now... Third step

3) Launch the landing page before building MVP.

The goal of this landing page is to make pre-sales. YES! You haven't started building the product but based on your Idea, you'll design the landing page and try offering founders, pre-sale offers with a great discount.

Remember the best way to validate an Idea is to GET PAID FOR THAT IDEA.

If no one is willing to pay on a pre-sale offer, It's probably not a great Idea and you should not work anymore on this Idea.

If you've made even a single sale from this pre-sale offer, that's a good indicator that you should proceed further with this project.

Where would you offer these pre-sale offers?

Same where you validated the Idea ( LinkedIn, X, Reddit) - It's a no-cost marketing. Especially offer those people who have said to pay for the product after development, give them this great one-time pre-sale offer - they are most likely to become your first customers even before the development of the product.

Now... fourth step

4) Launch your MVP within a month

and only now, you'll work on your MVP ( but remember, you've already made money from pre-sale before working on it, so some small cost for hosting the site will be covered from that pre-sale, which means no investment and profit from day 1 ).

Your MVP should be about your main Idea... No stupid features... just one Idea. You can partner with other platforms later.. right now It's about launching the main Idea.

Now... last step

5) Promote this MVP

we can promote it through launches and some free marketing investment ( or if there is any money left from pre-sale we can invest in marketing. )

If the promotion goes well, and founders like what you've built, and they purchased your MVP subscription... You'll proceed with it and build the complete product.

If founders don't like what you've built, you'll completely stop this project. YES!

and Now you know how to launch your product with a $0 investment and profit from day 1.

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Have a wonderful day.

Akash.