
From SaaS idea validation in 1 day to 150+ Beta signups - phil_rcketchart
https://rocketchart.co/en/saas-founders-story
======
aazaa
This appears to be long-form ad copy. It's characterized by extremely short
paragraphs (often one sentence), one after another, and a winding story the
reader must wade through to get to the payoff promised in the headline.

I can't stand this format and associate it with scams. But many prominent
marketers consider it the key to their success. The authors of the OP appear
to fall into the latter category.

After 1/3 of the way into the article, I don't know:

\- what RocketChart is or what it does

\- how the authors got 150 beta signups

I have, however, gained numerous insights into the emotional state of the
author, friends, and family, and have been blasted with memes from here to
Timbuktu.

If the article isn't long form ad copy, then it could use a thorough edit.
Start with the actionable part and give me a high-level view of it in the
first paragraph.

However, I strongly suspect otherwise.

~~~
JeffreyKaine
The author themselves said this was their first time writing long form. I
chalk most of your complaints up to this and the fact that english is his
second language.

~~~
rhizome
I give some allowance for ESL, but I refuse to believe he made it all the way
through school without having to write "long form," aka a book report or
something.

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JaakkoP
This is a prime example why people don't trust people in finance, and more
recently, in tech.

Imagine signing up for a service like this and the first interaction with it
is a lie. How can you trust some of your company's most important financial
data with a "partner" like this?

Disclosure: I run a financial modeling software company.

~~~
gitgud
I work for a small startup and have never felt right about _" fake it till you
make it"_, sometimes it just goes too far.

\- Lie about user count

\- Lie about product features

\- Lie about your products existence?

Enough with the lies...

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the_gastropod
“We have a SaaS that is running well (staff scheduling) since a couple of
years” … “I hadn’t a SaaS "running well", nor a real product ^^”

"Just before turning off the light, I sent a message to my brother. I asked
him to like my post to get a bit of visibility."

Ultimately, I don't think these things make a lick of difference. But it seems
so common for "growth hackers" to do kinda sleazy crap like this. Why's this
type of behavior so common?

~~~
hanniabu
Because the world rewards this type of scammy behavior. It's no different than
legit blockchain projects being overlooked for vaporware projects selling pie
in the sky ideas that they know they can't live up to. (I used this example
because I work in the industry and it kills me to constantly see this behavior
being rewarded)

~~~
mmsimanga
I agree. Some call this marketing. De Beers telling everyone that diamonds are
a girls best friend.

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jaclaz
Definitely I am way too old (and grumpy) for this kind of stuff, so I will
refrain from commenting on the ethics of the procedures reported, but I would
be curious on how the "plan" is to get to the $10k of Monthly Recurring
Revenue.

I mean is that 1 customer billed 10,000 bucks per month, 10,000 customers
billed 12 bucks per year or (more likely) something in the middle?

~~~
cryptozeus
I think they are just being honest, this has been followed by many many
companies before them. Nothing wrong with advertising and getting the clients
then building product from that point. Its all free anyway, its not like they
are taking people’s money upfront.

~~~
jaclaz
>Its all free anyway, its not like they are taking people’s money upfront.

More than "free" right now it is either "null" or "negative".

If the non-product (in Beta stage) is given to the beta-testers for free, it
is actually "null", Beta testers get (for free) an
incomplete/unusable/unuseful product. (we are talking of a "serious" product
that in perspective is to be used to manage "serious" matters, i.e. company
money)

If the non-product (in Beta stage) is given to the beta-testers (for free) AND
it is (or even if it was at the time the testing began) in early Beta (as this
seems the status from the narrative) it is actually "negative", beta-testers
are spending or have already spent their time/knowledge/experience on actually
making the product (not materially, but providing ideas, asking for needed
features, reporting bugs and errors, suggesting enhancements or changes,
etc.).

So not only the testers have spent time (if not money) on it, they actually
made a bet on the whole stuff, not even knowing if the product would have been
ever delivered, let alone the actual future (monthly) cost for it.

------
onion2k
Making a one page site to 'validate your idea' by getting 'sign ups' is more a
measure of how willing people are to hand over their email address than any
proof that your startup could work. How many of those people will turn in to
actual real money sales is the only metric that counts.

If you can get 150 people to preorder and pay an actual fee based on an idea
and a mockup then I'll be impressed. And it is possible...

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jonstaab
A lot of negative comments here, so I'll offer my 2c.

I agree that their initial post was deceptive, and inexcusably so. But the
spammy tactic I think is outweighed by their total devotion to understanding
their customers. Maintaining over 300 simultaneous conversations, just to get
an insight into their users is a herculean, and praiseworthy, effort.

The takeaways and tips are useful too, if you're thinking about starting a
bootstrapped company. They're not pitched as "do this and you'll succeed",
they're pitched as "here's what we did, you do you", which I appreciate. I'll
borrow some and ignore others when I start my own venture.

EDIT: curious why I'm being downvoted

~~~
phil_rcketchart
Maybe, you were downvoted because you didn't criticize our article as all
those genius guys are doing? ^^

Anyway, glad to see some useful comments that finally identify the bright side
of this :)

Thanks for your 2c

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dopamean
At first I thought it was sort of a minor thing to lie about having a company
that has been in operation for years but I think it's actually pretty
significant here. He's pitching a product that doesn't exist yet by saying
that it's worth everyone's time and money because his company has already been
using it with success. That's just not true and not really fair to do to your
would be first customers.

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martokus
I must be missing something. The product looks a like a cloud accounting
software.

Why does this not new concept need validation?

~~~
lukevdp
1\. It is their own take on accounting software. You make it sound like it’s
silly to need validation because the category exists. But every business ever
needs validation. 2\. They are new to the market (and seems like they are new
to business in general) and need to learn about it

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stuartc842
"hey guys, we're a successful company with a real product" \- theranos

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jsploit
I wonder if having a name so similar to RocketChat will be problematic for
you. Currently, Google even suggests correcting searches for RocketChart to
RocketChat.

------
sails
Seemingly well funded UK cashflow management tool fluidly [1] also validates
the concept I suppose, although I'd guess that they (Fludily) are solving for
what the user _needs_ and not what they _want_ (cashflow predictions vs
cashflow charts)

[1] [https://fluidly.com/](https://fluidly.com/)

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xmly
If your customer is president of each country, you can only have around 200
signups.

~~~
skrebbel
Also, the sky is blue. Bam! Qed!

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xwdv
Someday a savvy generation of consumers are going to catch on to these scammy
“validation” schemes and it will only get harder and harder to actually get
people’s attention as they grow to ignore anything that doesn’t demonstrate
something more than a screenshot or video or a slick website.

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rossmohax
I am surprised people are disclosing their financials to third party that
easily. plaintext accounting isn't very hard to use, yet it is much more
powerful and safer.

~~~
derivagral
There's a bit in the article where they directly ask for a CSV dump of
transactions, only to get denied. What I thought was somewhat
odd/ironic/funny/etc was that the thought of "hey give us your financials in a
csv" was untenable, but effectively doing the same through a banking API was
OK.

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JMTQp8lwXL
This might work for B2C products, but B2B is too niche. I have very specific
people I need to get in touch with.

~~~
dvt
I'm not sure what you mean, the product showcased is B2B. Most (all?) of their
clients are other startups.

~~~
sombremesa
Are those startups listed on their page actually using them? Is this something
you were able to independently verify?

I find it extremely hard to believe anything coming from people who have lied
to their customers from day one.

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scarejunba
Nice way to validate the concept there. Good stuff.

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jacobvm04
Wow this is a good article! Ill try this if I ever can come up with an idea
(hopefully lol).

