WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.100 the conventional wisdom. You used to tell us 00:00:02.100 --> 00:00:05.219 that to launch a software company, you needed 00:00:05.219 --> 00:00:07.559 millions of dollars. Right. A huge team, years 00:00:07.559 --> 00:00:10.560 of runway, all of it. But the sources we've been 00:00:10.560 --> 00:00:15.099 diving into, this 2026 SaaS playbook, it suggests 00:00:15.099 --> 00:00:17.760 that whole story is, well, it's just obsolete 00:00:17.760 --> 00:00:20.600 now. Completely. Success today isn't about having 00:00:20.600 --> 00:00:23.739 the biggest budget. It's about finding the real 00:00:23.739 --> 00:00:27.449 agonizing. problem, the lock, long before you 00:00:27.449 --> 00:00:29.809 even think about building the product, the key. 00:00:29.969 --> 00:00:32.390 And that moment of discovery, that's the whole 00:00:32.390 --> 00:00:34.810 game. Welcome to the deep dive. Today, we're 00:00:34.810 --> 00:00:36.929 exploring the playbook used by founders like 00:00:36.929 --> 00:00:39.490 Adam Robinson, who scaled his company, RB2B, 00:00:39.789 --> 00:00:43.409 to millions in revenue with a tiny, really focused 00:00:43.409 --> 00:00:45.850 team. It's kind of the blueprint for building 00:00:45.850 --> 00:00:48.130 human centric software. And our mission today 00:00:48.130 --> 00:00:50.009 is to give you a shortcut to that blueprint. 00:00:50.229 --> 00:00:52.570 Exactly. We're going to unpack the psychology 00:00:52.570 --> 00:00:55.270 of building in silence, why you absolutely have 00:00:55.270 --> 00:00:56.890 to do that uncomfortable customer validation, 00:00:57.289 --> 00:00:59.609 and how something like pricing can just unlock 00:00:59.609 --> 00:01:01.929 explosive growth. And why building an audience 00:01:01.929 --> 00:01:04.409 is maybe your best financial protection. Your 00:01:04.409 --> 00:01:08.030 safety wall. Let's start with the big one. Product 00:01:08.030 --> 00:01:11.480 market fit. It's a classic industry buzzword. 00:01:11.719 --> 00:01:14.019 It is, but we should define it simply. It's just 00:01:14.019 --> 00:01:17.079 the perfect immediate match between what you 00:01:17.079 --> 00:01:19.099 offer and what the market is desperate to buy. 00:01:19.260 --> 00:01:21.900 And most founders get this backward. Tragically, 00:01:22.099 --> 00:01:24.500 yes. They pour all their time and money into 00:01:24.500 --> 00:01:29.319 creating this shiny, complex key, the software. 00:01:29.480 --> 00:01:31.400 And then they go looking for a lock. Then they 00:01:31.400 --> 00:01:33.799 walk around desperately searching for a problem 00:01:33.799 --> 00:01:37.040 that it might fit. Smart founders do the complete 00:01:37.040 --> 00:01:39.859 opposite. You find the lock first. I think the 00:01:39.859 --> 00:01:41.879 real question is why we have that urge to build 00:01:41.879 --> 00:01:44.439 first. Why do we resist talking to customers? 00:01:44.859 --> 00:01:47.599 Because building feels productive. It's tangible. 00:01:47.680 --> 00:01:49.739 You can see the code. Yeah. Talking to people, 00:01:49.819 --> 00:01:52.700 especially when you might hear no. That feels... 00:01:52.409 --> 00:01:54.930 It feels hard. It takes a certain humility. And 00:01:54.930 --> 00:01:57.090 that resistance, it leads right into what the 00:01:57.090 --> 00:01:59.189 playbook calls the trap of building in secret. 00:02:00.069 --> 00:02:03.069 Waiting six, maybe 12 months for a perfect launch 00:02:03.069 --> 00:02:06.269 is just the single biggest waste of resources. 00:02:06.489 --> 00:02:08.289 The source material actually calls us the parent 00:02:08.289 --> 00:02:11.830 mistake. The parent mistake. Yeah. We love our 00:02:11.830 --> 00:02:14.349 idea, our code a little too much. We treat it 00:02:14.349 --> 00:02:16.889 like it's our child. And we project our own wants 00:02:16.889 --> 00:02:20.009 onto the market. Exactly. But the hard truth 00:02:20.009 --> 00:02:22.330 in this business is that the market is always 00:02:22.330 --> 00:02:25.150 the boss. One hundred percent. If the market 00:02:25.150 --> 00:02:28.509 just shrugs, you're wrong. Period. And that's 00:02:28.509 --> 00:02:30.770 where the cost fallacy comes in. It's such a 00:02:30.770 --> 00:02:33.250 huge psychological hurdle. Oh, it is. And I'll 00:02:33.250 --> 00:02:35.110 be honest. That's something I still wrestle with 00:02:35.110 --> 00:02:37.569 that myself. If you've spent five months coding 00:02:37.569 --> 00:02:40.069 a feature and it looks beautiful. It's your baby. 00:02:40.310 --> 00:02:44.030 It is. And the mental difficulty of just deleting 00:02:44.030 --> 00:02:47.229 that code. Admitting that effort was for nothing? 00:02:47.389 --> 00:02:49.370 It's a nuts. You have to fight it. So the answer 00:02:49.370 --> 00:02:51.509 isn't just deleting code. It's changing the goal 00:02:51.509 --> 00:02:54.150 entirely. You have to adopt that lean startup 00:02:54.150 --> 00:02:56.490 mindset from day one. The initial goal isn't 00:02:56.490 --> 00:02:59.650 profit. It's rapid learning, learning from every 00:02:59.650 --> 00:03:02.009 single customer complaint. And that learning 00:03:02.009 --> 00:03:06.009 guides you to a crucial distinction. Is your 00:03:06.009 --> 00:03:09.229 product a vitamin or is it a painkiller? Explain 00:03:09.229 --> 00:03:12.349 that. Vitamins are nice to have. They make things 00:03:12.349 --> 00:03:14.750 better, faster, more efficient. But they're the 00:03:14.750 --> 00:03:16.729 first thing to get cut when the budget gets tight. 00:03:17.069 --> 00:03:19.870 They're fragile. Painkillers, on the other hand, 00:03:20.310 --> 00:03:23.270 solve a burning must -have problem. These are 00:03:23.270 --> 00:03:25.569 totally non -negotiable. We're talking about 00:03:25.569 --> 00:03:27.830 things that stop a business from losing thousands 00:03:27.830 --> 00:03:29.750 of dollars. Or prevent them from breaking the 00:03:29.750 --> 00:03:32.370 law or, you know, automating a task that takes 00:03:32.370 --> 00:03:35.689 20 people five days to do. So if the market tells 00:03:35.689 --> 00:03:38.629 you your big idea is just a vitamin, what's the 00:03:38.629 --> 00:03:40.750 hardest lesson a founder has to learn right then? 00:03:40.939 --> 00:03:43.419 You have to immediately delete features customers 00:03:43.419 --> 00:03:45.580 won't pay for, no matter how much effort you 00:03:45.580 --> 00:03:48.180 put in. Which sets us up perfectly for validation. 00:03:48.340 --> 00:03:50.780 Yeah. Before you write a single line of production 00:03:50.780 --> 00:03:53.699 code, the whole strategy is about de -risking 00:03:53.699 --> 00:03:57.919 your life. The goal is to get to like 90 % certainty 00:03:57.919 --> 00:03:59.919 that people will actually buy this thing. Before 00:03:59.919 --> 00:04:02.039 you commit your own time and capital. This is 00:04:02.039 --> 00:04:04.780 where the 300 call rule comes in. Adam Robinson, 00:04:04.939 --> 00:04:07.460 the RB2B founder, he did hundreds of interviews 00:04:07.460 --> 00:04:09.340 before building. And you don't literally need 00:04:09.340 --> 00:04:11.740 300 calls, right? It's more about the data points. 00:04:12.219 --> 00:04:15.240 Exactly. 300 data points of deep conversation. 00:04:16.480 --> 00:04:19.959 But the key isn't the volume. It's how you ask 00:04:19.959 --> 00:04:22.459 the questions. You can't just ask, would you 00:04:22.459 --> 00:04:26.019 buy this? No. People are wired to be nice. They'll 00:04:26.019 --> 00:04:28.259 lie to you just to make you feel good. Right. 00:04:28.420 --> 00:04:30.560 So you have to ask for historical facts. How 00:04:30.560 --> 00:04:33.319 do you solve this problem right now? And... How 00:04:33.319 --> 00:04:36.100 much is that clunky solution costing you every 00:04:36.100 --> 00:04:40.160 single month? That historical data. That is the 00:04:40.160 --> 00:04:42.519 gold mine. If you talk to 100 people and 80 of 00:04:42.519 --> 00:04:45.379 them have the exact same expensive painful complaint... 00:04:45.379 --> 00:04:47.399 You've found it. You've found a gold mine. If 00:04:47.399 --> 00:04:50.000 only five people care, time to find a new problem. 00:04:50.480 --> 00:04:53.300 Okay. So once the problem is validated, you move 00:04:53.300 --> 00:04:55.600 to what the playbook calls the terrible version 00:04:55.600 --> 00:04:58.779 one, the MVP. The minimum viable product. Yeah. 00:04:58.889 --> 00:05:01.370 And it should be almost embarrassing. Why embarrassing, 00:05:01.529 --> 00:05:03.009 though? That sounds counterintuitive. Because 00:05:03.009 --> 00:05:05.029 if you build a beautiful product, you confuse 00:05:05.029 --> 00:05:08.089 the feedback. Is it about the design, or is it 00:05:08.089 --> 00:05:10.550 about the actual value? I see. So you strip it 00:05:10.550 --> 00:05:12.550 all away. Everything. If you're building a data 00:05:12.550 --> 00:05:15.490 tool, V1 could just be you manually making a 00:05:15.490 --> 00:05:17.910 PDF chart and emailing it to them. The rule is 00:05:17.910 --> 00:05:21.069 harsh. if people won't use your ugly Google Sheet 00:05:21.069 --> 00:05:23.509 to solve their problem. They definitely will 00:05:23.509 --> 00:05:27.209 not pay for your expensive, beautiful app. And 00:05:27.209 --> 00:05:29.430 you can use AI for some of this initial research 00:05:29.430 --> 00:05:32.250 now, even before making calls. Right. Tools like 00:05:32.250 --> 00:05:34.389 Perplexity are great because they use real -time 00:05:34.389 --> 00:05:36.709 data. They scrape the internet now and they give 00:05:36.709 --> 00:05:38.850 you sources. So you're getting real complaints 00:05:38.850 --> 00:05:41.589 from places like Reddit or Quora. We're not looking 00:05:41.589 --> 00:05:44.110 for general advice. We're looking for specific... 00:05:44.170 --> 00:05:47.930 emotional pain points. Exactly. The example prompt 00:05:47.930 --> 00:05:50.269 in the source was looking for small gym owners' 00:05:50.350 --> 00:05:53.110 frustrations with software like Mindbody. And 00:05:53.110 --> 00:05:55.629 you're not looking for the fee is too high. No. 00:05:55.810 --> 00:05:57.889 You're looking for something like the calendar 00:05:57.889 --> 00:06:00.269 integration breaks every single time I update 00:06:00.269 --> 00:06:02.970 a class and it costs me five hours of manual 00:06:02.970 --> 00:06:05.829 work every week. That's specific. Quantifiable 00:06:05.829 --> 00:06:09.360 pain. So beyond that ugly V1, how do we confirm 00:06:09.360 --> 00:06:11.560 that interest before we actually launch the product? 00:06:11.660 --> 00:06:14.319 You secure a wait list of 100 emails. It proves 00:06:14.319 --> 00:06:16.939 people will commit for free access. OK, so we've 00:06:16.939 --> 00:06:19.199 derisked the idea. We've validated it. Now we 00:06:19.199 --> 00:06:22.959 move to the growth engine. And in 2026, advertising 00:06:22.959 --> 00:06:26.379 is just. It's prohibitively expensive for most 00:06:26.379 --> 00:06:29.240 bootstrap startups. So an audience changes that 00:06:29.240 --> 00:06:31.300 whole equation. It means people look at you for 00:06:31.300 --> 00:06:35.860 free. But this requires founders to break the 00:06:35.860 --> 00:06:37.779 corporate wall. What does that mean? Consumers 00:06:37.779 --> 00:06:41.019 just don't trust shiny anonymous ads anymore. 00:06:41.500 --> 00:06:44.100 They're looking for a trusted guide, a person, 00:06:44.620 --> 00:06:46.399 someone who has solved the problem they're facing 00:06:46.399 --> 00:06:49.269 right now. The power of honesty here feels a 00:06:49.269 --> 00:06:52.009 little counterintuitive. It is. Sharing your 00:06:52.009 --> 00:06:54.790 mistakes, the late night bug fixes, your small 00:06:54.790 --> 00:06:57.189 failures, it doesn't make you look incompetent. 00:06:57.250 --> 00:07:00.069 It builds trust. It builds profound trust. The 00:07:00.069 --> 00:07:02.509 thinking is, if this founder is honest about 00:07:02.509 --> 00:07:04.569 what went wrong, I can probably trust the software 00:07:04.569 --> 00:07:06.649 they're building. So you turn the whole process 00:07:06.649 --> 00:07:09.329 of building into a kind of show. Yeah. And the 00:07:09.329 --> 00:07:11.209 audience gets invested. They start cheering for 00:07:11.209 --> 00:07:13.620 you. Which feeds right into the 80 -20 content 00:07:13.620 --> 00:07:16.100 rule, the whole trust deposit system. I love 00:07:16.100 --> 00:07:18.300 this analogy. Trust is a bank account. Every 00:07:18.300 --> 00:07:20.899 piece of value you give is a deposit. And every 00:07:20.899 --> 00:07:23.459 time you ask for a sale, it's a withdrawal. So 00:07:23.459 --> 00:07:25.779 80 % of what you put out there should be pure 00:07:25.779 --> 00:07:28.560 value and storytelling. We're talking about sharing 00:07:28.560 --> 00:07:31.279 real data, like your actual revenue charts, even 00:07:31.279 --> 00:07:34.220 if it's only $1 ,000. Yeah, show the raw behind 00:07:34.220 --> 00:07:37.019 the scenes work. Or, and this is critical, share 00:07:37.019 --> 00:07:39.399 expert tips on solving their problems without 00:07:39.399 --> 00:07:42.300 using your software. Prove you're valuable, whether 00:07:42.300 --> 00:07:44.980 they pay you or not. And when you make those 00:07:44.980 --> 00:07:48.019 deposits consistently, the 20 % promotion, they 00:07:48.019 --> 00:07:51.399 ask for a demo, it just feels natural. They buy 00:07:51.399 --> 00:07:54.300 because they're already part of the story, not 00:07:54.300 --> 00:07:57.680 because of some ad. For B2B founders, the source 00:07:57.680 --> 00:07:59.800 points to LinkedIn as the best place for this. 00:08:00.120 --> 00:08:03.040 It's networking at scale and a little content 00:08:03.040 --> 00:08:05.879 tip. Personal stories about the journey get five 00:08:05.879 --> 00:08:08.160 to 10 times more views than purely technical 00:08:08.160 --> 00:08:09.800 posts. And you have to remember that comments 00:08:09.800 --> 00:08:13.060 are content. Yes, you guys spend time every day 00:08:13.060 --> 00:08:15.040 replying, engaging, showing that you actually 00:08:15.040 --> 00:08:18.180 care. That small effort shows you're human. Because 00:08:18.180 --> 00:08:20.360 that relationship, that community, that is your 00:08:20.360 --> 00:08:23.199 safety wall. A big competitor can copy your features 00:08:23.199 --> 00:08:25.500 in two weeks. But they can't copy the relationship 00:08:25.500 --> 00:08:28.120 you've built. They can't. That is your moat. 00:08:28.459 --> 00:08:31.019 So if the audience is that safety wall, what's 00:08:31.019 --> 00:08:33.659 the fastest way to just tear it down? Stop sharing 00:08:33.659 --> 00:08:36.559 value and only ask people to buy your product. 00:08:36.960 --> 00:08:39.639 So let's talk about monetization. Pricing is 00:08:39.639 --> 00:08:42.340 where so many founders just get lazy. They pick 00:08:42.340 --> 00:08:45.379 a random number, $49 a month. Exactly, because 00:08:45.379 --> 00:08:48.179 everyone else does it. And it's a huge failure. 00:08:48.419 --> 00:08:50.940 It's too expensive for your small users, and 00:08:50.940 --> 00:08:53.679 it massively undercharges your big ones. And 00:08:53.679 --> 00:08:56.039 that's precisely why the playbook pushes for 00:08:56.039 --> 00:08:58.320 usage -based pricing. The whole idea is simple. 00:08:58.440 --> 00:09:01.259 You only pay as you get value. It aligns your 00:09:01.259 --> 00:09:03.299 success perfectly with your customer's success. 00:09:03.340 --> 00:09:05.740 We saw this with the RB2B example. They started 00:09:05.740 --> 00:09:09.750 with a flat fee, $495 a month. And it just failed. 00:09:09.990 --> 00:09:12.970 But when they switched, the change was, well, 00:09:12.990 --> 00:09:15.250 it was explosive. They went to a free tier for 00:09:15.250 --> 00:09:18.029 up to 200 leads. And then charged per lead after 00:09:18.029 --> 00:09:20.429 that. The revenue jumped from $5 ,000 a month 00:09:20.429 --> 00:09:23.529 to $80 ,000 in just a few months. Wait, from 00:09:23.529 --> 00:09:26.750 $5 ,000 to $80 ,000? Whoa. Yeah. Because users 00:09:26.750 --> 00:09:29.509 were only paying when they got actual measurable 00:09:29.509 --> 00:09:32.509 value. All the friction was gone. The goal with 00:09:32.509 --> 00:09:35.309 this kind of pricing is to create what they call 00:09:35.309 --> 00:09:37.960 upgrade moments. You want the user to happily 00:09:37.960 --> 00:09:40.659 hit a wall. Right. They get a notification. You've 00:09:40.659 --> 00:09:43.440 hit your 50 reports limit. Yeah. And if those 00:09:43.440 --> 00:09:45.740 50 reports were amazing, they're not going to 00:09:45.740 --> 00:09:47.860 complain. They're going to happily pull out their 00:09:47.860 --> 00:09:50.779 wallet for 50 more. This also leads into the 00:09:50.779 --> 00:09:53.200 service model. It used to be self -service on 00:09:53.200 --> 00:09:55.700 one side, expensive sales teams on the other. 00:09:55.940 --> 00:09:59.500 The best modern strategy uses both. It's a hybrid. 00:09:59.759 --> 00:10:02.460 They call it the sales assist model. So the software 00:10:02.460 --> 00:10:05.080 self -service but the human touch is there right 00:10:05.080 --> 00:10:07.419 away. When someone signs up for free, you send 00:10:07.419 --> 00:10:10.240 a personal message from the founder immediately. 00:10:10.559 --> 00:10:13.220 Not some generic automated email. A real note. 00:10:13.539 --> 00:10:15.820 Hey, I saw you signed up. I'm the founder. Can 00:10:15.820 --> 00:10:18.600 I help you set up your first project? This simple 00:10:18.600 --> 00:10:21.000 outreach fixes the single most common reason 00:10:21.000 --> 00:10:23.919 people quit a new tool. The setup gap. The setup 00:10:23.919 --> 00:10:26.700 gap. Right. Most users quit in the first 10 minutes 00:10:26.700 --> 00:10:29.480 because they get confused or stuck. And the data 00:10:29.480 --> 00:10:33.080 on this is wild. When Adam Robinson offered to 00:10:33.080 --> 00:10:35.480 personally help people set up their code, the 00:10:35.480 --> 00:10:37.279 success rate, the number of people who actually 00:10:37.279 --> 00:10:40.779 stuck around, it jumped from 40 % to 80%. You 00:10:40.779 --> 00:10:43.100 double your retention with a personalized email. 00:10:43.779 --> 00:10:46.580 So if usage -based pricing is working so well, 00:10:47.120 --> 00:10:49.860 what's the core goal of adding this human -focused 00:10:49.860 --> 00:10:53.179 sales assist model? Personal help fixes that 00:10:53.179 --> 00:10:55.659 setup gap. and dramatically increases your user 00:10:55.659 --> 00:10:58.000 success rate. OK, so turning all this into a 00:10:58.000 --> 00:11:00.620 scalable growth engine, that requires mastering 00:11:00.620 --> 00:11:04.019 storytelling. And every great story needs a villain. 00:11:04.299 --> 00:11:06.799 In business, the villain is just the old broken 00:11:06.799 --> 00:11:09.240 way of doing things. Right. Manual data entry 00:11:09.240 --> 00:11:12.100 that eats up 40 % of your time, or that expensive, 00:11:12.200 --> 00:11:14.500 inflexible agency you're stuck with. When you 00:11:14.500 --> 00:11:16.840 clearly attack that villain, people who are suffering 00:11:16.840 --> 00:11:19.669 from that problem, They see your software as 00:11:19.669 --> 00:11:22.269 the hero. You become a beacon for them and that 00:11:22.269 --> 00:11:24.889 narrative feeds what they call the viral flywheel. 00:11:25.230 --> 00:11:27.149 Transparency creates excitement and excitement 00:11:27.149 --> 00:11:29.590 creates growth. You have to share real numbers, 00:11:29.629 --> 00:11:33.549 not we're growing fast. Say this week we hit 00:11:33.549 --> 00:11:37.389 50 new paying users and a thousand dollars in 00:11:37.389 --> 00:11:40.200 monthly recurring revenue. That creates instant 00:11:40.200 --> 00:11:42.860 FOMO fear of missing out. People sign up just 00:11:42.860 --> 00:11:44.600 to see what all the excitement is about. And 00:11:44.600 --> 00:11:46.940 the ultimate selling strategy, which builds authority 00:11:46.940 --> 00:11:50.659 faster than anything, is to teach, don't sell. 00:11:51.100 --> 00:11:53.759 Instead of a sales pitch, you record a 90 -second 00:11:53.759 --> 00:11:56.399 video showing exactly how to fix a problem with 00:11:56.399 --> 00:11:58.320 your tool. If your free tips are so good they 00:11:58.320 --> 00:12:00.360 save someone five hours, they'll just assume 00:12:00.360 --> 00:12:02.720 the paid software must be incredible. You build 00:12:02.720 --> 00:12:05.080 authority through generosity. But before we get 00:12:05.080 --> 00:12:07.379 to the timeline, we have to talk about two big 00:12:07.379 --> 00:12:10.240 mistakes that can kill a startup, even with a 00:12:10.240 --> 00:12:13.080 great idea. The first is feature creep. The disease 00:12:13.080 --> 00:12:16.299 of saying yes to every single customer request. 00:12:16.419 --> 00:12:18.259 And the root cause is just a fear of telling 00:12:18.259 --> 00:12:21.240 customers no. Just because one person asks for 00:12:21.240 --> 00:12:23.500 a feature doesn't mean the market needs it. Adding 00:12:23.500 --> 00:12:26.080 too much stuff just makes your core product bloated 00:12:26.080 --> 00:12:28.759 and confusing. The goal is to be the absolute 00:12:28.759 --> 00:12:31.919 best solution for one specific thing. And the 00:12:31.919 --> 00:12:33.940 second mistake is tracking the wrong numbers. 00:12:34.899 --> 00:12:37.860 You have to obsess over MRR monthly recurring 00:12:37.860 --> 00:12:41.019 revenue and churn. Churn is the percentage of 00:12:41.019 --> 00:12:43.100 users who quit every month. And if that number 00:12:43.100 --> 00:12:46.320 is high, the playbook says anything over 10 % 00:12:46.320 --> 00:12:48.600 is an emergency. You have to stop all marketing. 00:12:49.399 --> 00:12:51.799 Immediately. Yeah, if your churn is high, you're 00:12:51.799 --> 00:12:54.100 just pouring money into a leaky bucket. You stop, 00:12:54.399 --> 00:12:56.299 you fix the leak, and then you start marketing 00:12:56.299 --> 00:12:58.759 again. Considering how important free tiers are, 00:12:58.899 --> 00:13:01.399 what is the most dangerous consequence of offering 00:13:01.399 --> 00:13:04.529 too much for free? You end up with 10 ,000 users, 00:13:05.210 --> 00:13:07.450 but you're perpetually stuck at zero revenue. 00:13:07.610 --> 00:13:09.370 OK, let's bring this all together. Let's walk 00:13:09.370 --> 00:13:12.149 through the 12 -month execution plan from the 00:13:12.149 --> 00:13:14.090 playbook. This is designed to get you to your 00:13:14.090 --> 00:13:17.509 first 1 ,000 committed users. So month one to 00:13:17.509 --> 00:13:20.649 three is all discovery and validation. Your job 00:13:20.649 --> 00:13:24.669 is 90 % talking, 10 % planning. Talk to 50, maybe 00:13:24.669 --> 00:13:27.990 100 potential users. Find that shared painful 00:13:27.990 --> 00:13:30.179 lock. And at the same time, you start posting 00:13:30.179 --> 00:13:32.100 on LinkedIn three times a week about what you're 00:13:32.100 --> 00:13:35.000 learning. Build that early audience. Then, month 00:13:35.000 --> 00:13:38.460 four to six is the MVP phase. You build the smallest, 00:13:38.779 --> 00:13:41.559 ugliest version that solves that one core problem. 00:13:41.679 --> 00:13:45.240 And you give that terrible V1 to 20 beta users 00:13:45.240 --> 00:13:48.440 for free in exchange for just brutal, honest 00:13:48.440 --> 00:13:51.000 feedback. And you use that feedback to fix the 00:13:51.000 --> 00:13:53.220 biggest bugs. Month seven to nine is the launch 00:13:53.220 --> 00:13:55.539 phase. You open the wait list to your audience. 00:13:55.860 --> 00:13:58.500 You introduce that usage -based pricing. And 00:13:58.500 --> 00:14:00.980 this is when you start that personal sales assist 00:14:00.980 --> 00:14:04.440 outreach to every single new sign -up. You have 00:14:04.440 --> 00:14:08.039 to fix the setup gap. Finally, month 10 to 12 00:14:08.039 --> 00:14:10.460 is the scale phase. You double down on the content 00:14:10.460 --> 00:14:12.840 that worked best, you start automating the repetitive 00:14:12.840 --> 00:14:14.840 parts of the business. And once the core product 00:14:14.840 --> 00:14:16.639 is stable, you start looking for those bigger 00:14:16.639 --> 00:14:18.720 mid -market customers who can handle the higher 00:14:18.720 --> 00:14:21.019 usage fees. You know, the ultimate lesson of 00:14:21.019 --> 00:14:22.860 this entire playbook, the thing that ties it 00:14:22.860 --> 00:14:26.179 all together, is that it's about humans. It's 00:14:26.179 --> 00:14:29.019 not about code. Customers really don't care about 00:14:29.019 --> 00:14:31.139 your proprietary algorithms or what language 00:14:31.139 --> 00:14:33.720 you used. Not at all. They care about one thing. 00:14:33.919 --> 00:14:36.399 Did this save me two hours of frustrating work 00:14:36.399 --> 00:14:38.639 so I could get home on time? And that's the core 00:14:38.639 --> 00:14:41.940 insight. Founders like Adam Robinson prove that 00:14:41.940 --> 00:14:45.340 a five person super focused team can out earn 00:14:45.340 --> 00:14:49.120 a 50 person company. Just by being faster, radically 00:14:49.120 --> 00:14:52.220 honest and relentlessly focused on solving one 00:14:52.220 --> 00:14:55.820 human problem perfectly. So as you wrap up this 00:14:55.820 --> 00:14:58.639 deep dive, just remember where your most powerful 00:14:58.639 --> 00:15:01.559 asset is. It's not your code base. It's not your 00:15:01.559 --> 00:15:04.200 funding. It's the relationship. the trust you 00:15:04.200 --> 00:15:06.740 build. So think about this. What is one personal 00:15:06.740 --> 00:15:09.279 story about your journey, a small failure, maybe 00:15:09.279 --> 00:15:11.580 a surprising win, that you could share this week 00:15:11.580 --> 00:15:13.799 to start building that safety wall of trust? 00:15:13.980 --> 00:15:15.779 That's a great question to reflect on. Thank 00:15:15.779 --> 00:15:17.600 you for diving deep with us today. We encourage 00:15:17.600 --> 00:15:19.659 you to keep learning and keep challenging that 00:15:19.659 --> 00:15:21.700 conventional wisdom. We'll see you on the next 00:15:21.700 --> 00:15:22.200 Deep Dive.