The 5 Steps Framework For Solopreneurs To Go From Idea To Profitable Product
Dead simple framework.
Being amazing at marketing makes you more money today. Having an amazing product makes you more money tomorrow. The first sale comes from marketing. Every other sale comes from a having good product.
- Alex Hormozi
My biggest breakthrough happened when I realized the importance of marketing.
And it took me almost 600 days to figure it out.
600 days of complete uncertainty, dozens of failed products, over 10 burnouts and $0 made.
I was literally lost and felt like a complete failure.
Until I figured out something. A secret to building products and trying to sell them that you rarely read about:
You can sell almost anything.
You can build any product and sell subscriptions to it and make a few hundred bucks a month.
And it’s not even about what your product does (in the beginning).
Most entrepreneurs believe that having a superb product for a fantastic idea will bring in money.
They couldn’t be more wrong.
And in today’s article, I am going to give you the exact 5 steps to go from idea to a paying product.
(Rework?) - And you are going to be surprised by the content of each.
Step 1: Pick an idea
This is the step most people think is the most important one. The make or break of every startup.
Find a painkiller and not a vitamin, as they say.
But it couldn’t be further from the truth, and I’ll let you in on a secret:
You can turn any vitamin into a painkiller.
Look, WriteStack started as a Substack-like text editor.
It barely qualified as a vitamin. More of a placebo to a disease that doesn’t even exist.
Now it makes $1,600 a month and growing (fast).
The initial idea was bad. But the next versions were so good that people just joined in on auto-pilot.
How to do it:
Find a community you like (like Substack)
Figure out the problems that you have and people from the community might have
Choose a problem. Any of them.
Then move on to Step 2.
Pro tip:
This can also be done backwards.
Choose a problem
Find a community of people that might have this problem
Pro tip 2 (powerful):
Build your well before you’re thirsty.
Start writing content and sending DMs to people in that community way before you create anything.
that way you build rapport with people by helping them and later on asking them for a hand will be much easier.
If you struggle, here’s my playbook to cold DMs.
Step 2: Build a first version
Now some entrepreneurs believe that this is the most important step of the process.
And I am happy to tell you, they are still wrong!
Building a first version of your product is the part where you are going to have most fun.
You turn your vision into a product. It’s freaking awesome!
But it’s not even close to being the most important thing in the process. Picking an idea is even more important.
I want you to think of your MVP this way:
The goal of an MVP is to let others interact with your vision.And let me tell you something: Your first version will probably suck. And suck bad.
In your mind everything will be clear. But users will probably hate it.
So don’t sweat about it too much. Just build it as fast as you can (easy with AI), make sure it looks decent (also easy with AI) and delivers on your vision as simply as possible (do not overdo this).
How to do it:
Write a detailed description of your idea with all the features you want
Go to bolt.new/v0.app/lovable.dev or any other AI you like
Paste the description you wrote in 1. and send
Iterate with the AI until you think it’s ready
Buy a domain and connect to your app (optional, but valuable)
Then move to step 3.
Pro tip:
Verifying your idea with a landing page to collect emails/payments is a thing of the past.
That was the most efficient way in the pre-AI era.
Nowadays you can build a solid MVP in less time than it’ll take you to come up with a good copy for a landing page to collect those emails/payments.
Step 3: Test with People
Now rare are the entrepreneurs who do this step, let alone understand the importance of this step, so let me lay it out for you, as simply as possible:
Do this or don’t build anything at all.
This is probably the most important step of building a product people are willing to pay for.
If you’re skipping it, you’re wasting your life and you’ll learn nothing.
I used to believe that I will learn something from each failure. Like they say, Each failure is a lesson to learn from.
I do not believe it.
I spent almost 2 years repeating the same mistake, over and over, and I learned nothing.
So don’t be me. Test your ideas with people
How to do it
Go to your community and find the people who might have the problem you’re solving
Send those people a DM and tell them about the solution you have or:
Ask them if they can help you with testing it for incentive X (preferably over Zoom)
Learn and gather feedback based on their responses
Move to Step 4
Pro tip (important):
Don’t look to make money in this stage. In fact, be prepared to lose money.
The goal is to gather enough information to turn your idea into a valid solution that people would appreciate.
Plus, nobody will pay you to be a tester, unless you are a big creator with a name.
Pro tip 2:
Write content about your solution and tell people to come and test it and try your amazing product before anybody else.
You can also offer an incentive, like a free subscription.
Example:
“[insert your content].
Btw, I am looking for testers to try X out for the first time. As a token of gratitude, I’ll give you 30 days to use X for free!”
Find 50-100 people to test it
See how it works in practice and gather feedback
Step 4: Learn and refine
Now we’re getting to the holy grail of paving your way to a profitable product that people actually love.
This is where the magic that turns your idea into a validated solution happens.
In this step you use what you learned from Step 3 to take your MVP from a vitamin to a painkiller.
And let me tell you this before you get disappointed.
Some people will ignore you
Some will use it once and ghost
Some will promise you things and never do it
But some of the people, and these are the amazing ones that’ll help you build a superb product, will help you A LOT.
They will test almost any feature and give you feedback.
These people are usually the ones that find value in your solution and want to help you improve, because it helps them improve.
So don’t be discouraged if you get tons of ignores. It’s part of the game. Embrace it.
How to do it:
Use the feedback from Step 3 and improve your product
Ask the people who asked for the change to test it again
Are people still on the fence and do not use it? Back to Step 3
People are praising it and start using it consistently? Move to Step 5
Pro tip:
Deliver the changes as fast as you can. If you can do it in minutes, that’s good. People appreciate it when you make them feel special.
Pro tip 2:
Don’t be afraid to make drastic changes (pivots). You can always revert.
Step 5: Put up the paywall
Things are now exciting!
You finally built something that people use and you have validated your idea. Congratulations.
This is the easiest step of them all, but it has some intricacies.
You don’t want to surprise your loyal testers with a sudden paywall, which might throw them off a little.
The best situation for you is not to be “you against them”, but to “be on the same team”.
And the way to do it is to let them know that you’re considering a paywall and consult with them about the initial price.
That way you:
Get valuable information about how much they’re willing to pay
Put them on your team and make them more receptive to your paywall
How to do it
Send a happy announcement DM to your loyal testers and inform them that you have reached a validated product and that you want to put up a paywall
Ask them, as your most active users, what’s their no-brainer price. In other words, how much would they pay for it without even thinking.
Take the average price you got from everybody and add 50-100% to it. That’s the initial price.
Pro tip:
Give a deep lifetime discount to your initial, loyal testers. They were there when you verified the idea and helped you get to a validated solution.
Show them some love (I gave 30% discount for life).
To know the discount you want to give, try to aim to to their no-brainer price.
Final thought
Building a product that makes money is not complicated. In fact, it is pretty damn simple.
But it’s freaking hard.
You’ll have to deal with rejections, people telling you that what you thought is wrong and some might even roast is badly (happened to WriteStack).
But that’s okay. It’s part of the journey.
What’s important about it is that you will actually learn from your failures, and not just repeat the same mistakes over and over again.
Take it from a guy who wasted 600 days and learned almost nothing.
P.S.
This weekend WriteStack is going to be available for free.
No credit cards, no commitments. Just pure value for you to test.
Sign up now to get notified when the weekend hits.
(You don’t have to go beyond the paywall. Just sign up with your email and you’re in)
Great framework. Get started the right way.
I appreciate this transparent view, Orel. I have one that keeps showing up as a need and problem, and I haven't seen the kind of product that solves it that I have in mind. I'm just getting things off the table to dive into the MVP version of it!
Great points about what one must be prepared for regarding people's reactions.