You’re currently a one-man-band - a one-person business. You’ve been scribbling wireframes on the back of a napkin for way to long, and now it’s time to take it seriously. How do you both launch and validate your software startup idea as quickly as possible?

Let's consider the ideal scenario for a solopreneur to launch a software product in 2024:

• Produce content online in order to get people who want your lifestyle or knowledge or systems/courses etc. and position you as an authority. Or you just have the work ethic, skills and personality like Ryan Trahan and you can probably just launch anything and have it succeed.

• Amass a considerable audience (unfortunately this is qualitative), and launch digital products/affiliate links/ad placements etc. along the way to monetize and to later reinvest back into the flywheel you create. Basically, do step 1 for a long time and don’t give up.

• Gather interest in the product through quizzes and/or waitlists by funnelling your viewers and customers to a high-converting landing page. Preferably, you would have already had a rough app idea in mind before you started attracting an audience, as you’re more likely to have good product-market fit for that initial audience that will turn this into a real business.

You can do this through:

• Youtube

• Twitter, LinkedIn

• Reddit

• Warm-outreach / reposts.

• HackerNews

• IndieHackers

• ProductHunt

• AppSumo launch

• IndiePage

• Etc.

Like me, you may have no clue how to do any of this, but that’s not the point.

Either way, keep in mind that "90% of SaaS start-ups fail to achieve the desired level of success and fail to generate revenue; a study by CB Insights found that 42% of SaaS start-ups fail due to "no market need" for their product"

https://www.onlysaasfounders.com/post/why-startups-fail#:~:text=However%2C statistics show that most,market need" for their product.

So your chances of “success” are slim. You’d better be in this for the journey, the teachings, and to never stop playing the game. You’re a winner by never quitting. Your only objective is to continue to play and build.

• With an adequate volume of interest confirmed by your audience, fund the development of a software product that relates to your audience and brand. Depending on the scope of your MVP, this could be < 1000 sign-ups on the waitlist. Funding can be done through existing revenue streams in your creator business, or by acquiring funding. You're not a sell-out if you head to the VCs. Just note that if you're planning on exiting (sale or IPO), that you should at least aim for a liquidity event of 10x the funding received (I can’t remember where I saw this).

That's not easy.

• Leading up to your advertised launch date of the product, direct new sign-ups to an interest-check landing page that now shows the pricing model (different plans). "Join our limited waitlist by choosing an exclusive pre-launch plan below!" "294 spots available." "Launch Date: Jan 1st 2025" "Never Again Exclusive Pricing!" "1st 2 months free!"

You want to fester:

• urgency (they need to sign-up now before the launch)

• scarcity (limited spots available for the pre-launch offer)

• Exclusivity This is important for the type of customer you will be receiving/attracting who is interested and willing to sign up for a product before it exists. They're like the couple at the farmer's market who is willing to go to the new stall in the far corner, away from the action, and try our their weird foreign dishes.

Now imagine there's a long line of customers at this new stall. There's a guard at the back of the line checking your ID before you enter, and loads of people hanging around waiting for their food.

Now all of a sudden it's intriguing, exciting and not weird and done out of empathy for this new stall owner. That's what we're aiming for here.

• Now we should have a high converting landing page (affected by the design, layout and copy of the landing page) that has determined interest in the product, but we don’t know whether people are willing to pay. There are a few options to go about this (or not bother) but here are 2:

• Add a modal popup that asks the user to select a pricing plan before they join the waitlist (after entering their email address).

• After the prospect confirms their email subscription, have that confirmation page be a page that gives them an exclusive “insider” deal that is in-line with the existing pricing you are displaying.

• It goes without saying that all this while we should have been nurturing our sign-ups with weekly(ish) emails – leading them to the benefits of the product and the problems it can solve. We are not trying to be pushy. We are teaching and providing value to our prospective customers, but teaching, giving wisdom, insight and news into topics that relate to the problem our product solves.

• 1 Week out from the launch date, it’s time to be a bit more pushy. After all, the launch is just around the corner and if I were you, I’d sign up now to grab this exclusive deal!

The launch date arrives, and you witness traffic to your site surge as new users arrive from all corners of the internet.

Except actually just the corners you managed to find and tell about your product.

You and your software team have built an incredibly robust, quality piece of software with the MVP. You have perfectly followed the age-old MVP blueprint:

Your product leaves users extremely satisfied with the launch as gathered in a follow-up email a week post launch.

Your one key feature has left users hungry for more.

With Phase 1 and 2 out of the way, it’s time to scale!

Maybe now you reach to the VCs? Or do you keep it Indie (assuming you’ve got this far and are still “swag” like that).

ANNNDDD that’s more or less how I will be launching https://typeway.app/