SlideShare a Scribd company logo
1 of 12
Download to read offline
How toValidateYour SaaS IdeaWithThe Power of Hustle
Close.io
 There are lots of opportunities to build
successful SaaS businesses. Find out if your
idea has real potential by getting to know your
potential customers in three steps.
 Building a SaaS business takes a lot of work.
Before you even start investing your time,
energy and money into setting it up, spend a
couple of days to find out if your SaaS idea
has real potential to turn into a successful
SaaS company.
 Go out and talk to people who could be potential
customers. Spend a whole afternoon walking
into 10 different businesses, and say: "Hi, I'm ...,
can I talk to the manager/owner." When you
meet the owner, say: "Hi, I'm an entrepreneur
about to start a new business to fix a problem that
I think you have. Can I get three minutes of your
time to see if this is something that you might
want?"
 This is the best way to get started.The big
advantage here is that you're going to be able to
get very valuable feedback, you're going to be
able to see people's responses, it's very visceral,
you will get a real sense for how they run their
operations. Although you can't do this kind of
market research on a big scale, the quality of the
responses/insights you get is really powerful.
 The next thing to do is to call potential
customers. Even though you're missing out on a
lot of visual clues about them and their business,
you still get to have one-on-one conversations
that will help you understand their wants and
needs really well.This obviously scales a better
than in person interactions.
 The next higher tier is to email people.You can
email a lot more people, but the quality of the
insights you get will be a lot different.You'll be
able to seee open/response rates and read
people's responses.Written feedback often
times is a bit more "filtered" than what people
would tell you over the phone or in person.The
great thing is that you can aggregate and
analyse results at scale.
 When you're an entrepreneur just starting out,
lots of people will tell you that your idea is great,
just because they like you or want to encourage
you. But there’s a big difference between saying
they would buy your product and actually paying
money for it. How do you find out if they would
have real intent to buy? One way to test this is to
try sell your product even before you have build
it.
 … to find out if they have real buying intent:
 “What are all the steps I have to make for you to
become my customer?” I call this the “virtual
close”.
 Listen carefully, watch out for red flags and
make sure you get a very specific answer.Once
you’ve reached a point where the “virtual close”
has occured, do a test closing.
 We want to start in 4 weeks - does this work for you?
 The beta program is heavily discounted. If you sign up now, you’ll get it for half
the price for life.
 What is the decision making process in your company? How quickly can we make
a decision on this?
 And then ask them for money.Tell them: “Can I take your credit card info to
process the payment?”
Make it risk-free.Tell them their payment is 100% refundable, if they’re not
happy with the product, they can get their money back at any point.
Not everyone will be willing to give you money. But you can get at least some of
the people who say they want your product to actually pay you in advance in
order to get a discount in return or move the timeline up.
1. Get a deep understanding of the environment your potential
customers are working in by talking to them face-to-face.
2. Talk to more potential customers by phone to see if the early
problems you've discovered are validated with a larger test
group.
3. Email more potential customers to test your early findings at
scale/gather more data and build up a list of prospects.
4. "Test-close" prospects to determine whether they are just
"curious" or real prospects with real pain points and willingness
to buy your product/solution.
Get the FREE 30 Day Startup Sales Success
Email Course
http://close.io/free-sales-course/

More Related Content

More from Close.io

The No-BS Guide to Understanding (and Calculating) Churn
The No-BS Guide to Understanding (and Calculating) ChurnThe No-BS Guide to Understanding (and Calculating) Churn
The No-BS Guide to Understanding (and Calculating) ChurnClose.io
 
Email Marketing: Seven tips for writing (really) effective subject lines
Email Marketing: Seven tips for writing (really) effective subject linesEmail Marketing: Seven tips for writing (really) effective subject lines
Email Marketing: Seven tips for writing (really) effective subject linesClose.io
 
Five quick tips to leave killer sales voicemails
Five quick tips to leave killer sales voicemailsFive quick tips to leave killer sales voicemails
Five quick tips to leave killer sales voicemailsClose.io
 
Three keys to killer SaaS pricing pages
Three keys to killer SaaS pricing pagesThree keys to killer SaaS pricing pages
Three keys to killer SaaS pricing pagesClose.io
 
Ten tips for cold calling success
Ten tips for cold calling successTen tips for cold calling success
Ten tips for cold calling successClose.io
 
The quickstart guide to tracking sales data
The quickstart guide to tracking sales dataThe quickstart guide to tracking sales data
The quickstart guide to tracking sales dataClose.io
 
Ab testing B2B cold emails
Ab testing B2B cold emailsAb testing B2B cold emails
Ab testing B2B cold emailsClose.io
 
Heureka Conference 2015 talk by Steli Efti: Why fuck ups do hurt
Heureka Conference 2015 talk by Steli Efti: Why fuck ups do hurtHeureka Conference 2015 talk by Steli Efti: Why fuck ups do hurt
Heureka Conference 2015 talk by Steli Efti: Why fuck ups do hurtClose.io
 
Y Combinator alumni sales school (Summer 2014)
Y Combinator alumni sales school (Summer 2014)Y Combinator alumni sales school (Summer 2014)
Y Combinator alumni sales school (Summer 2014)Close.io
 
Startup sales for bankers bootcamp
Startup sales for bankers bootcampStartup sales for bankers bootcamp
Startup sales for bankers bootcampClose.io
 
B2B Inbound Sales Emails Webinar With Customer.io & Close.io
B2B Inbound Sales Emails Webinar With Customer.io & Close.ioB2B Inbound Sales Emails Webinar With Customer.io & Close.io
B2B Inbound Sales Emails Webinar With Customer.io & Close.ioClose.io
 
How To Sell To Non-Believers - Turning Doubt Into Trust
How To Sell To Non-Believers - Turning Doubt Into TrustHow To Sell To Non-Believers - Turning Doubt Into Trust
How To Sell To Non-Believers - Turning Doubt Into TrustClose.io
 
The Unscalable Startup
The Unscalable StartupThe Unscalable Startup
The Unscalable StartupClose.io
 

More from Close.io (13)

The No-BS Guide to Understanding (and Calculating) Churn
The No-BS Guide to Understanding (and Calculating) ChurnThe No-BS Guide to Understanding (and Calculating) Churn
The No-BS Guide to Understanding (and Calculating) Churn
 
Email Marketing: Seven tips for writing (really) effective subject lines
Email Marketing: Seven tips for writing (really) effective subject linesEmail Marketing: Seven tips for writing (really) effective subject lines
Email Marketing: Seven tips for writing (really) effective subject lines
 
Five quick tips to leave killer sales voicemails
Five quick tips to leave killer sales voicemailsFive quick tips to leave killer sales voicemails
Five quick tips to leave killer sales voicemails
 
Three keys to killer SaaS pricing pages
Three keys to killer SaaS pricing pagesThree keys to killer SaaS pricing pages
Three keys to killer SaaS pricing pages
 
Ten tips for cold calling success
Ten tips for cold calling successTen tips for cold calling success
Ten tips for cold calling success
 
The quickstart guide to tracking sales data
The quickstart guide to tracking sales dataThe quickstart guide to tracking sales data
The quickstart guide to tracking sales data
 
Ab testing B2B cold emails
Ab testing B2B cold emailsAb testing B2B cold emails
Ab testing B2B cold emails
 
Heureka Conference 2015 talk by Steli Efti: Why fuck ups do hurt
Heureka Conference 2015 talk by Steli Efti: Why fuck ups do hurtHeureka Conference 2015 talk by Steli Efti: Why fuck ups do hurt
Heureka Conference 2015 talk by Steli Efti: Why fuck ups do hurt
 
Y Combinator alumni sales school (Summer 2014)
Y Combinator alumni sales school (Summer 2014)Y Combinator alumni sales school (Summer 2014)
Y Combinator alumni sales school (Summer 2014)
 
Startup sales for bankers bootcamp
Startup sales for bankers bootcampStartup sales for bankers bootcamp
Startup sales for bankers bootcamp
 
B2B Inbound Sales Emails Webinar With Customer.io & Close.io
B2B Inbound Sales Emails Webinar With Customer.io & Close.ioB2B Inbound Sales Emails Webinar With Customer.io & Close.io
B2B Inbound Sales Emails Webinar With Customer.io & Close.io
 
How To Sell To Non-Believers - Turning Doubt Into Trust
How To Sell To Non-Believers - Turning Doubt Into TrustHow To Sell To Non-Believers - Turning Doubt Into Trust
How To Sell To Non-Believers - Turning Doubt Into Trust
 
The Unscalable Startup
The Unscalable StartupThe Unscalable Startup
The Unscalable Startup
 

Recently uploaded

Entrepeenur story -tushar khurrana and jatan bawa -perfora oral care
Entrepeenur story -tushar khurrana and jatan bawa -perfora oral care Entrepeenur story -tushar khurrana and jatan bawa -perfora oral care
Entrepeenur story -tushar khurrana and jatan bawa -perfora oral care shreyajain219669
 
"Chai Journey : Vidur's Chai Adventure"
"Chai Journey :  Vidur's Chai Adventure""Chai Journey :  Vidur's Chai Adventure"
"Chai Journey : Vidur's Chai Adventure"shalinirkips
 
King Siddharth Entrepreneur his journey to success
King Siddharth Entrepreneur his journey to successKing Siddharth Entrepreneur his journey to success
King Siddharth Entrepreneur his journey to successsksriram100
 
Entrepreneurship presentation - Ankush sachdeva
Entrepreneurship presentation - Ankush sachdevaEntrepreneurship presentation - Ankush sachdeva
Entrepreneurship presentation - Ankush sachdevadivasuriya10
 
Zepto CEO : AADIT PALICHA ( Founder & CEO)
Zepto CEO :  AADIT PALICHA ( Founder & CEO)Zepto CEO :  AADIT PALICHA ( Founder & CEO)
Zepto CEO : AADIT PALICHA ( Founder & CEO)israthfathima6
 
如何办理克拉克森大学毕业证书学位证书成绩单?
如何办理克拉克森大学毕业证书学位证书成绩单?如何办理克拉克森大学毕业证书学位证书成绩单?
如何办理克拉克森大学毕业证书学位证书成绩单?krc0yvm5
 
Challenges of Women entrepreneurs in Ja.pptx
Challenges of Women entrepreneurs  in Ja.pptxChallenges of Women entrepreneurs  in Ja.pptx
Challenges of Women entrepreneurs in Ja.pptxdidavis2002
 
Bond-Markets_pptxz@1223knkvfxkcmkojkfgvm
Bond-Markets_pptxz@1223knkvfxkcmkojkfgvmBond-Markets_pptxz@1223knkvfxkcmkojkfgvm
Bond-Markets_pptxz@1223knkvfxkcmkojkfgvmcristianpallessingco
 
ENTERPRISE,ENTREPRENEUR,ENTREPRENEURIAL,ENTREPRENEURSHIP & INTRAPRENEURSHIP....
 ENTERPRISE,ENTREPRENEUR,ENTREPRENEURIAL,ENTREPRENEURSHIP & INTRAPRENEURSHIP.... ENTERPRISE,ENTREPRENEUR,ENTREPRENEURIAL,ENTREPRENEURSHIP & INTRAPRENEURSHIP....
ENTERPRISE,ENTREPRENEUR,ENTREPRENEURIAL,ENTREPRENEURSHIP & INTRAPRENEURSHIP....kittustudy7
 
Austin Russell: Innovator Extraordinaire
Austin Russell: Innovator ExtraordinaireAustin Russell: Innovator Extraordinaire
Austin Russell: Innovator ExtraordinaireHariharanR60178
 
Harshit pandey- HARPANX FOUNDER INDIA'S YOUNGEST ENTREPRENEUR
Harshit pandey- HARPANX FOUNDER INDIA'S YOUNGEST ENTREPRENEURHarshit pandey- HARPANX FOUNDER INDIA'S YOUNGEST ENTREPRENEUR
Harshit pandey- HARPANX FOUNDER INDIA'S YOUNGEST ENTREPRENEURjahnavidevidillibabu
 
ENTERPRISE VS ENTREPRENEUR VS INTREPRENEUR VS EMPLOYEE VS EMPLOYMENT VS MANAGER
 ENTERPRISE VS ENTREPRENEUR VS INTREPRENEUR VS EMPLOYEE VS EMPLOYMENT VS MANAGER ENTERPRISE VS ENTREPRENEUR VS INTREPRENEUR VS EMPLOYEE VS EMPLOYMENT VS MANAGER
ENTERPRISE VS ENTREPRENEUR VS INTREPRENEUR VS EMPLOYEE VS EMPLOYMENT VS MANAGERkittustudy7
 
"Slice: Bajaj's Entrepreneurial Story"
"Slice:  Bajaj's  Entrepreneurial Story""Slice:  Bajaj's  Entrepreneurial Story"
"Slice: Bajaj's Entrepreneurial Story"dineshms1207
 
To be the first choice freight forwarding, Customs Brokerage, and logistics...
To be the first choice freight  forwarding, Customs Brokerage,  and logistics...To be the first choice freight  forwarding, Customs Brokerage,  and logistics...
To be the first choice freight forwarding, Customs Brokerage, and logistics...onesaint969
 

Recently uploaded (14)

Entrepeenur story -tushar khurrana and jatan bawa -perfora oral care
Entrepeenur story -tushar khurrana and jatan bawa -perfora oral care Entrepeenur story -tushar khurrana and jatan bawa -perfora oral care
Entrepeenur story -tushar khurrana and jatan bawa -perfora oral care
 
"Chai Journey : Vidur's Chai Adventure"
"Chai Journey :  Vidur's Chai Adventure""Chai Journey :  Vidur's Chai Adventure"
"Chai Journey : Vidur's Chai Adventure"
 
King Siddharth Entrepreneur his journey to success
King Siddharth Entrepreneur his journey to successKing Siddharth Entrepreneur his journey to success
King Siddharth Entrepreneur his journey to success
 
Entrepreneurship presentation - Ankush sachdeva
Entrepreneurship presentation - Ankush sachdevaEntrepreneurship presentation - Ankush sachdeva
Entrepreneurship presentation - Ankush sachdeva
 
Zepto CEO : AADIT PALICHA ( Founder & CEO)
Zepto CEO :  AADIT PALICHA ( Founder & CEO)Zepto CEO :  AADIT PALICHA ( Founder & CEO)
Zepto CEO : AADIT PALICHA ( Founder & CEO)
 
如何办理克拉克森大学毕业证书学位证书成绩单?
如何办理克拉克森大学毕业证书学位证书成绩单?如何办理克拉克森大学毕业证书学位证书成绩单?
如何办理克拉克森大学毕业证书学位证书成绩单?
 
Challenges of Women entrepreneurs in Ja.pptx
Challenges of Women entrepreneurs  in Ja.pptxChallenges of Women entrepreneurs  in Ja.pptx
Challenges of Women entrepreneurs in Ja.pptx
 
Bond-Markets_pptxz@1223knkvfxkcmkojkfgvm
Bond-Markets_pptxz@1223knkvfxkcmkojkfgvmBond-Markets_pptxz@1223knkvfxkcmkojkfgvm
Bond-Markets_pptxz@1223knkvfxkcmkojkfgvm
 
ENTERPRISE,ENTREPRENEUR,ENTREPRENEURIAL,ENTREPRENEURSHIP & INTRAPRENEURSHIP....
 ENTERPRISE,ENTREPRENEUR,ENTREPRENEURIAL,ENTREPRENEURSHIP & INTRAPRENEURSHIP.... ENTERPRISE,ENTREPRENEUR,ENTREPRENEURIAL,ENTREPRENEURSHIP & INTRAPRENEURSHIP....
ENTERPRISE,ENTREPRENEUR,ENTREPRENEURIAL,ENTREPRENEURSHIP & INTRAPRENEURSHIP....
 
Austin Russell: Innovator Extraordinaire
Austin Russell: Innovator ExtraordinaireAustin Russell: Innovator Extraordinaire
Austin Russell: Innovator Extraordinaire
 
Harshit pandey- HARPANX FOUNDER INDIA'S YOUNGEST ENTREPRENEUR
Harshit pandey- HARPANX FOUNDER INDIA'S YOUNGEST ENTREPRENEURHarshit pandey- HARPANX FOUNDER INDIA'S YOUNGEST ENTREPRENEUR
Harshit pandey- HARPANX FOUNDER INDIA'S YOUNGEST ENTREPRENEUR
 
ENTERPRISE VS ENTREPRENEUR VS INTREPRENEUR VS EMPLOYEE VS EMPLOYMENT VS MANAGER
 ENTERPRISE VS ENTREPRENEUR VS INTREPRENEUR VS EMPLOYEE VS EMPLOYMENT VS MANAGER ENTERPRISE VS ENTREPRENEUR VS INTREPRENEUR VS EMPLOYEE VS EMPLOYMENT VS MANAGER
ENTERPRISE VS ENTREPRENEUR VS INTREPRENEUR VS EMPLOYEE VS EMPLOYMENT VS MANAGER
 
"Slice: Bajaj's Entrepreneurial Story"
"Slice:  Bajaj's  Entrepreneurial Story""Slice:  Bajaj's  Entrepreneurial Story"
"Slice: Bajaj's Entrepreneurial Story"
 
To be the first choice freight forwarding, Customs Brokerage, and logistics...
To be the first choice freight  forwarding, Customs Brokerage,  and logistics...To be the first choice freight  forwarding, Customs Brokerage,  and logistics...
To be the first choice freight forwarding, Customs Brokerage, and logistics...
 

LEAN SALES - How to Validate Your SaaS Idea With The Power of Hustle

  • 1. How toValidateYour SaaS IdeaWithThe Power of Hustle Close.io
  • 2.  There are lots of opportunities to build successful SaaS businesses. Find out if your idea has real potential by getting to know your potential customers in three steps.
  • 3.  Building a SaaS business takes a lot of work. Before you even start investing your time, energy and money into setting it up, spend a couple of days to find out if your SaaS idea has real potential to turn into a successful SaaS company.
  • 4.  Go out and talk to people who could be potential customers. Spend a whole afternoon walking into 10 different businesses, and say: "Hi, I'm ..., can I talk to the manager/owner." When you meet the owner, say: "Hi, I'm an entrepreneur about to start a new business to fix a problem that I think you have. Can I get three minutes of your time to see if this is something that you might want?"
  • 5.  This is the best way to get started.The big advantage here is that you're going to be able to get very valuable feedback, you're going to be able to see people's responses, it's very visceral, you will get a real sense for how they run their operations. Although you can't do this kind of market research on a big scale, the quality of the responses/insights you get is really powerful.
  • 6.  The next thing to do is to call potential customers. Even though you're missing out on a lot of visual clues about them and their business, you still get to have one-on-one conversations that will help you understand their wants and needs really well.This obviously scales a better than in person interactions.
  • 7.  The next higher tier is to email people.You can email a lot more people, but the quality of the insights you get will be a lot different.You'll be able to seee open/response rates and read people's responses.Written feedback often times is a bit more "filtered" than what people would tell you over the phone or in person.The great thing is that you can aggregate and analyse results at scale.
  • 8.  When you're an entrepreneur just starting out, lots of people will tell you that your idea is great, just because they like you or want to encourage you. But there’s a big difference between saying they would buy your product and actually paying money for it. How do you find out if they would have real intent to buy? One way to test this is to try sell your product even before you have build it.
  • 9.  … to find out if they have real buying intent:  “What are all the steps I have to make for you to become my customer?” I call this the “virtual close”.  Listen carefully, watch out for red flags and make sure you get a very specific answer.Once you’ve reached a point where the “virtual close” has occured, do a test closing.
  • 10.  We want to start in 4 weeks - does this work for you?  The beta program is heavily discounted. If you sign up now, you’ll get it for half the price for life.  What is the decision making process in your company? How quickly can we make a decision on this?  And then ask them for money.Tell them: “Can I take your credit card info to process the payment?” Make it risk-free.Tell them their payment is 100% refundable, if they’re not happy with the product, they can get their money back at any point. Not everyone will be willing to give you money. But you can get at least some of the people who say they want your product to actually pay you in advance in order to get a discount in return or move the timeline up.
  • 11. 1. Get a deep understanding of the environment your potential customers are working in by talking to them face-to-face. 2. Talk to more potential customers by phone to see if the early problems you've discovered are validated with a larger test group. 3. Email more potential customers to test your early findings at scale/gather more data and build up a list of prospects. 4. "Test-close" prospects to determine whether they are just "curious" or real prospects with real pain points and willingness to buy your product/solution.
  • 12. Get the FREE 30 Day Startup Sales Success Email Course http://close.io/free-sales-course/