A short YouTube talk by Dennis H. Lewis offering pragmatic advice for founders launching products. He urges founders to first leverage their personal networks by openly asking contacts to join a waitlist, then to validate demand cheaply with small PPC campaigns (suggested test spend $300–$500) or even paid-signup tests (e.g., $50). He emphasizes overcoming fear of failure and using early supporters who know you to test ideas.
Chapters
By all means, talk to everybody that you know that you think might need that solution and say, hey, I'm going to do this, and it's going to be awesome for you. If you get in early, go here, sign up on the wait list. Okay? That's just common sense. Common sense. It's common sense that a lot of founders don't do because. Because they're worried that they may not make it, or they're worried that those connections might see them drop the ball, or if it turns out wrong, they're going to burn some credibility. All of those fears, you know, you can't afford them. I'm sorry, get over it. You can't afford them. You have to say, I'm doing this and my reputation be damned if I fail. I will keep going. It's not that big a deal. I'll go back to that list and I'll say, hey, I did my best. It didn't work out, and that's it. And nobody's going to hold you over a fire. Nobody's going to take you out and put you up to a firing squad because your idea didn't pan out. But the benefits of getting those people involved in your project at the beginning, those people know you. They. They have some modicum of faith in your ability to do it. Take advantage of that. Okay? That's step one. And step two is to spend a little bit of money, I don't know, 300 bucks, 500 bucks, something like that. And run some PPC ads to your wait list and see if you can get strangers to just say, hey, this might be interesting to me. Okay? Let's face it. You're going to spend a lot more than 500 bucks building your application, building your product, building your business. Why not do a little test first? Why not spend that modic little bit of money, 300 bucks, 500 bucks, to see if the market, if strangers, if strangers are at least willing to give you their email address. Okay? I've seen people run wait lists where they actually ask for people to pay. They say, no, give me 50 bucks.
