You’ve read The Mom Test!
You’re hunting for Authentic Demand!
You’re looking for those first paying users!
But how do you get people to pay you money when you need money to build the thing that people will pay you for?
A chicken and egg problem…THAT WE’RE GOING TO DEBUNK TODAY!
Here are 5 ways I’ve seen real startups prove demand and pre-sell their product before it existed!
Are these the exact strategies you should use?
Probably not.
Every business is different.
But hopefully it will trigger an idea, inspire you, or give you a starting place for your own version of a pre-sell!
1. Sell memberships.
We used this playbook in our Venture Studio when launching The Perlant and Intown Golf Club.
We sold club memberships before the club existed.
Explain the vision. Get people excited. Offer a founding membership for $1000.
When you have 100 future members, who want it enough to put money down, several amazing things happen:
you know you’re onto something real
$100,000 of working capital
100 evangelists (aka unpaid sales people) who recruit their friends
strong data points to share with potential investors
What’s the “selling memberships” version of what you’re working on??
2. Sell a user experience.
No tech? No problem!
Deliver the solution manually but make it much, much easier than what they are doing now.
(And automate the tech over time once you have paying customers and you know exactly what will solve their problem!)
I’ve seen this work for real companies like:
a logistics marketplace — got to 6 figures of revenue with a spreadsheet backend
remote monitoring services — leveraged offshore resources while developing scalable tech
task management tool — software frontend with humans behind the scenes
Customers are happy to pay because their experience is so much better. They don’t care how it happens!
What is the 10x better experience you are selling? What can you deliver now, knowing that you’ll improve and automate over time?
3. Sell the product overview.
I have always loved this example from The Rebel Business School, who I also mention here.
They don’t build the content for any of their entrepreneurship education courses until they have sold the course!
They use a syllabus overview in the sales meeting. If they win the deal (they sell to economic development organizations), then they hustle to build out the specific course materials.
You can also do this for:
New modules on your platform — get customer contracts first
Next locations — do sales outreach or inbound sign ups to see where demand is
Your whole product — they’re called design partners! And it’s more possible to code a product in a few days than ever before!
P.S. Large companies do this too. They sell dreams, I mean, showcase aspirational customer use cases at their premier events, then spend the rest of the year actually building them!
What do you actually need to sell? Can it be a mock up instead of a full product? What’s the minimum viable version (that you can later deliver on) to get a customer onboard?
4. Sell an item, then acquire it.
Marketplace Building 101.
I love love love the Lenny’s Newsletter series on marketplaces! It tells the real stories of how great marketplaces got started.
Spoiler: it’s messy.
The company’s value prop is something like:
“We have many Things (babysitters, errand runners, hotel rooms)!”
Then someone buys a Thing from the marketplace, except it was a placeholder/test/fake-it-til-you-make-it listing.
They scramble behind the scenes to locate and deliver the Thing quickly so it feels easy and seamless.
And this is how marketplaces get started!
Lots of faking supply or demand until awareness grows and you don’t need to fake it anymore!
People also do this with consumer products. Offer a pre-order option or explain that it’s a 2 week turnaround.
Do you think Etsy creators are holding warehouses of inventory (beyond their guest room and garage 😆)? No way!
What can you sell now and then procure after? Especially great for services or physical products!
5. Sell knowledge.
I love consulting and community-building as a way to get customers! This is combo of both.
Your insights and expertise are the hook. Your research becomes a coveted and helpful data set.
You can “pre-sell” things like:
Paid newsletter
1:1 consultation
Small group events
Workshops (in person or online)
You build trust as the expert, deliver value to your target customers, while also generating revenue and getting insight for a tech product!
Can you monetize your expertise now so that it funds (and shapes) your long term tech vision?
But What About AI???
People can build tech tools faster than ever. Like, hours instead of weeks and months.
Are these pre-sell strategies old fashioned now?? Why not just build in 30 seconds and then regular-sell?!?
The best founders I know are using AI and these strategies. They can iterate faster and better with AI. They can run even MORE experiments, MORE quickly.
You still have to use your own judgement and brain. Yep. You may also have to talk to real humans to learn from them and sell things. I know, terrible really. 😉 Exclusive AI-Agent-to-AI-Agent communication isn’t here…yet!
When everyone can build more products faster than ever before, you will need to separate yourself from the noise! Selling before you build will be a differentiator. Your solution will be better; you will be closer to your customers.
If you can build an amazing product super fast that people will pay for right away, amazing! Keep going! It’s very hard but if you’ve done it, congrats (and tell me about your product)!
Have you pre-sold your product before? What worked for you? Any other pre-selling lessons — good or bad — to share??
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