How I Got My First 50 Customers Before Building A Product

If you want to pre sell your product before it's built and actually get people to pay you real money for something that doesn't exist yet, you need more than just hype. You need to build trust, you need to provide great value and you need to create a no brainer offer that makes it really difficult for them to say no. Today I'm going to show you exactly how I did this when I pre sold my Software back in 2014. Webinar Ninja this is the beginning of my 10 year journey of building, growing and scaling that software company to an exit. We got acquired last year by Proprofs. Today I want to show you exactly how we pre sold our software Webinar Ninja back in 2014 and made money, had money in the bank before the product even existed. I want to show you how you could do the same for your business, for your product so you can get your first 20 to 50 beta members. For us, it was first 250 beta members that started the whole journey for us. How we started our business, how we built our, how we scaled it over 10 years and eventually sold it to Proprof. So this could be the beginning of something very special for you. So it's really important that you nail it. There are four key moves that we did when we pre sold Webinar Ninja that made it a success. I want to share with you those four moves. The first one is we led with value, not features. Beta customers don't care about your roadmap. They care about how you'll actually make their life easier today, not tomorrow, not a month from now, not a year from now. So say for example, I had a software that helps personal trainers, coaches, PTs, get rid of their admin work, get rid of all the stuff, the tracking they have to do, like how many sets, how many reps this person's doing while they're doing the exercises, what weight they're doing. Let's say that kind of all evaporated with my software because it's using AI, all this great technology. Then if I present that to my client, that's gold. Because now they don't have to do that and they could be present with their client and they can actually do more clients, they can serve more clients because they don't have to do the admin work later. So when you're presenting the value to your customer in this example, you want to show them how you are actually right now going to save them time, how you're going to save their mental bandwidth, how are you going to make them look more professional, how they'll be able to handle more clients, like I mentioned, how they're going to reduce mistakes, how they're going to reduce fatigue, how they're going to reduce forgetfulness. Right? And the whole anchor is if your product saves you money and time, you're already speaking their language. You have to immediately show them as quickly as possible that hey, when you put your name down, when you pay your deposit, when you buy this product and get it when it's coming out in two months, then you're going to be able to take advantage of xyz. These are the advantages that you're going to have and how it's going to improve your life, your business and get you a return on an investment. Everybody sees a purchase as an investment. Even vacations, even a pair of shoes. They are investing in a pair of shoes so that they can get a return on investment. When people like their posts on Instagram with those shoes on. So that's the point here. Think about what the customer wants. They want a return on investment. Show them what that return is. Second move, anchor the full feature price. A beta offer only is attractive if they know they're getting a deal. If they know they're getting a deal, a steal. So the good way to do this is to anchor beta price with the final price or the price that your app is going to be or your product's going to be after you're out of this phase. And then when we anchor that $1200 a year to the beta price, which could be 299 a year with two free months as a bonus, that looks like a no brainer deal. That price will never be offered again because you're just coming in early, you're pre selling the product. So everybody sees that, hey, I better get this in now because otherwise I'm going to pay $900 more. Plus I'm not getting those two free months. So as you could see, the value really is being conveyed by the anchoring. They don't know if they're getting a deal if they don't know what to compare it to. People only take early action when they feel like they're getting ahead of everybody. Like they know a secret that nobody else knows and they just want to jump on it before everybody finds out. Move number three, we made them VIPs not beta users. I've been using the term beta users because it's a common term that people know, but we call them founding members because that sounds a lot better because it makes them feel like they're special. And they are special because their feedback is going to be implemented first. As these early founding members, we told our customers, you're going to shape how this product evolves. You'll help us build a tool that the entire industry ends up using. So they felt like investors in the company. They felt like they're part of something bigger than themselves. This creates emotional buy in, especially in industries like fitness, personal training, coaching, health and wellness, knowledge, information, business investing, all that kind of stuff. They love being early adopters. They want to be a part of something that is new. It's exciting. When we launched Webinar Ninja, we told our founding members, hey, we are going to take your feedback, we're going to implement it first. You're going to shape this product with us. You know, you, you know it best because you're going to be using it the most. And that really resonated with people. And that was reason enough for people to say, hey, take my money. I want to be a part of this journey. Can I get 30 seconds of your time? We love guiding you on your business journey and we want to help even more people build their dream lives. So if you could hit the subscribe button, it would be greatly appreciated. It's completely free and it helps us out more than you know. Thanks. Move number four that we implemented was extreme risk reversal. If you're asking people to pay for something early, you need to remove all risk. Use a guarantee. That feels absurd. It feels crazy. And that's why we did a 90 day money back guarantee. So what we did is that we said, hey, you get 90 days from the day you receive the product. So they buy before they receive the product because it's a pre sale. And then once they receive the product, the 90 days starts going, starts counting. And we told them, hey, if you don't love the product for any reason, we'll refund you the money that you put in at the start. So for you, it might be like they paid for an annual subscription at a really good price and for any reason they don't like it, you can refund them that annual subscription. Now the reason why 90 days works so well is because in our experience, when we were launching Webinar Ninja and we released the product and some people came to us and say, hey, you know, this is not for me, I don't have time to do this, or whatever it might be, we spoke to them and said, hey, listen, you still have 65 days left to use this product and get the most out of it. How about we help you implement it, get you onboarded and see if it works. If it doesn't work, we'll still give you your money back. Don't worry about it. So it gave us 90 days really to sell the product to them, to re engage them. Now of course, if they just say it flat out, no, I don't want to do that, we give their money back. You know, we don't want to put, you know, them in a bad situation or make them feel uncomfortable or really put a bad taste in their mouth. We want to make sure that they're happy, but we want to make sure they actually get a win out of this experience. And sometimes that win is actually keeping the product and getting the ROI. And the 90 days really allows them to emotionally invest in the product and not feel rushed. A lot of people, they just ask for a refund because they didn't open the box. Like they didn't actually check it out yet. They just didn't get around to it. Right. They could have had, you know, a holiday or a busy time at work or maybe a life crisis and they just had no time to kind of evaluate their product. And sometimes when you pre sell and then you deliver the actual product, a lot happens in their life. A lot changes between that time you might sell the product and then they get the product like, you know, three or four months later. And then all of a sudden their life is a little bit different, a little bit busier and they just forget to kind of take action. And then they just get this notification on their, maybe in their email or maybe on their calendar and they're like, oh, I should refund this because I haven't used this yet. So giving them more time allows them to actually implement, get r an ROI and a chance for you to engage with them and be active in that situation. You want to be actively reaching out to these founding members from day one week, one month one, and say, hey, let's get you on board, let's get you started. And you should see inside the dashboard of your software or in your program or whatever tool you're using to sell your products or services. If they're engaged, if they're actually watching the videos or whatever it might be, and if they're not, you gotta go after them and make sure they do so that they don't ask for a refund. You be proactive with activating them instead of them being the first person to reach you and say, hey, I want a refund. So bottom line, the longer the guarantee, the more Likely they are to stay. So the way we pre sold Webinar angel was very simple. We literally just had a landing page and a promise mockups of what the software is going to look like, how it's going to implement the solution to the problem of overwhelming webinars. At the time, it was very hard to wr a webinar as a solopreneur, as an author, as a speaker, as even just a small business owner that has a couple teammates. You know, a lot of the enterprise software was not built for those types of teams. So we showed them on the page exactly what the value is. We gave them early access. We gave them that VIP status of being a founding member. We gave them a really great discount. That was a lifetime and a mission that they believed in. This is very important. Probably the most important thing is like, hey, you got to sell them on what you're trying to build and what you're trying to change in the world. The mission we had with webinar niche is that we want to make it easier for people to monetize their knowledge and become financially free. We believe that webinars are a great way for you to convey your value and help other people and change other people's lives through your products and services. And there's nothing like that online. You know, it be email, it be text, it be video, like a static video. Because webinars are interactive. You can go back and forth with people and answer questions, answer rebuttals. And so it was a great sales conversion tool as well. And when you share that with people, people love being part of something new, something that has meaning and it builds trust with your audience. Many founders think credibility comes from the product itself. Wrong. Credibility comes from you. And your angle is why you built this, the story behind the product, why the industry needs it, why you should care, why, why you'll keep improving it over the years. You know, a lot of people buy Patagonia purely on the fact that they are a sustainable company, a company that believes in sustainability in the environment, and they'll fix any garment of clothing that you buy from them instead of you buying a new one. It sounds crazy, but Patagonia absolutely believes this. And yes, their products are a little bit more expensive than their competitors, but because they have a mission, people can get behind that mission. It has really very little to do with how the clothing is styled or the cut of their or, you know, their vests or their sweaters. No, it really has to do with what Patagonia stands for. The bottom line is that people aren't buying a product, right? They're buying your commitment to solving their problem through the product. The moment people believe the product will make their life easier, that's the moment that they are sold. And that's where you, the founder, will deliver on that promise. So you need to make sure that if they're going to put their money up front and you're going to pre sell it, that you actually deliver on that promise when you deliver the product. So remember in the beginning of this episode I said you're going to need more than hype. Actually, hype hurts you. You want to undersell it and over deliver, right? So make sure that you're not over hyping the product when you're pre selling it so that you set up expectations way too high. In fact, you should actually be upfront that it won't be perfect. And they're going to help you make it better and better every day. And that's okay, because early adopters, they don't want perfection. All they want is progress. So now it's time for you to take action. This is what I want you to do. I want you to answer these questions. You want to deliver this exact pitch when you're pre selling on your landing page. Number one, who is this for? Who's this product for? Is it for busy trainers and coaches? Is it for doctors? Is it for lawyers? Is it for young people? Old people? The more specific, the better. Number two, the painful problem. What's the problem really that you're solving in the example I was giving with the fitness app Admin, stealing your focus as a coach and costing you clients. Number three, what's the transformation they're going to go through? This app, this product will let them track everything automatically so they can safely present with their clients and serve more clients. Number four, what's the anchor price? What's the future price? The final price is going to be XYZ, you know, 3X what it is right now. Number five, what's the founding member's price? The customer price. Right? The beta price, so to speak. It's got to be a whole lot less, right? And you can make it whatever you want and then just anchor it to a higher price. So your price might be $50 instead of $300. Number six, VIP advantage. As a founding user, as a founding member, your feedback is going to shape our next vision. You're going to get improvements, you're going to get free updates. You know, one of the reasons why Tesla are so popular is because people feel like they're getting a new car every few months. You know, there's like over the air updates to improve the car, like every two months. Number seven, risk reversal. Extend that time as much as possible. Try for 90 days, try for 120 days. If you don't love it, we'll refund everything. The longer the better in my opinion, because it gives them more time to see the value and get a return on investment. If you can cover these seven in your pitch on your landing page, you're golden. So you're not begging people to take a risk. You're offering them a chance to be first, to be on the cutting edge, to be before everyone else, before this thing goes crazy and is super popular. If this episode gave you clarity, share it Share with another founder, another business builder that you know who's building something new and wants to be able to launch with a big bang and really be able to make some money before they even deliver the product. And if you want more from me, I encourage you to join our weekly newsletter over@100mba.net newsletter where I share real insights every single week. It takes about five minutes to consume. It's absolutely free. Just go to100mba.net newsletter before I go, I want to leave you with this. One of the best things I got out of pre selling webinar Ninja as a product was clear product validation. We opened up our first founding members and we capped it to 150 spots and we sold that out in 48 hours. I had a very small email list at the time, less than 3,000 people. And I thought to myself, wow, this is incredible. There's so many people that are sharing and talking about this. I really struck a nerve here. This is a product people actually want and they're willing to spend money on it before they even receive it. So then we opened up to another hundred beta members and we sold those spots out in another 24 hours. So we had 250 beta members in 72 hours. That was clear product validation. That hey, this product market fit here. People want this product. This is worth investing. This is worth me spending my next 10 years building and growing this product. So that's actually the best thing I got out of that experiment or that experience of pre selling the product is clear product validation. And I'm not wondering if this is something that I should invest my time, money and energy into for a good portion of my life. So if this gives you anything, that is the one thing I would say is the best thing. Yes, the money up front is great. And yes, having customers and being able to build a great product is fun. But that validation to know that you're working on the right thing is everything in business. Alright, I'll check you in the next episode. I'll see you then.