I'd like to sell a product before prototyping it
This takes the idea of "lean startup" one step further whereby I do not prototype the product until it's proven it will sell.
What will this look like?
My idea is to create a landing page for the product and promote it via blogging and social media platforms to generate traffic. The landing page will lead to a purchase page where you will be prompted to enter your card info and submit an order.
Once, the prospect submits an order I will return a message like the following:
Thank you for your interest in my product. The product is still in development so it is not available for purchase. This was a test to gauge the demand of my product. No personal information was saved in this transaction. If you'd like to be notified when this product is released, please enter your email.
Thoughts on this approach? I'm looking for feedback on this style of product development. Has anyone done something similar?
I did this for spreadtheworld.net! It worked like a charm.
What i did:
Then I shared my LP on social media and reddit and get few pre-orders!
That's the best validation ever!
Wow, that's inspiring.
Sorry, for asking a bunch of questions but I'm really curious about how it played out.
Nice website btw
Thanks!
STW is a pretty small product. I'd say one week, the stack is nocode only so it's super fast (1-2 days) most of my time was about curating/cleaning this giant list of 400+ items
+1 for Xavier and his approach to this aspect.
It sounds like it does the job you want.
By the tactic you described in the text, I would feel cheated or misled by you, a small trust issue already from the beginning.
I got 400 signups with the video and a single landing page. It was called pre-launch and it worked great.
Here is the story
Your approach is good, but it needs some tweaking. You should not ask them to enter credit card information and then say this is just a test to understand their interest. Some of them might get angry and you will loose potential prospects. Instead the idea suggested by Xavier is great.
I agree the concept of asking for credit card information without providing a product is sketchy and sends a bad message. Xavier's method sounds like an excellent alternative. Allowing them to preorder will allow me to measure my idea and secure my first customers