Get Paid to Build Your Business: Sell Before You Build!

Learn how to validate your business idea and secure revenue before investing significant time and money into building your product. This article outlines a practical approach to identifying real customer needs and ensuring product-market fit, based on Parker Olson's experience turning an early idea into a six-figure business in just 12 months.

The Founder's Dilemma: Building vs. Selling

Most entrepreneurs fall into the trap of building their product first and then hoping customers will appear. This approach often leads to wasted time, money, and effort. Parker Olson shares his experiences and provides a playbook to "flip the script" and prioritize selling before building, ensuring you're solving a real problem customers are willing to pay for.

Parker Olson's Journey: From Forage to PodPitch

Parker Olson, co-founder of PodPitch, shares his entrepreneurial journey. His first major venture, a health food company called Forage, consumed four years and close to a million dollars in investment, yet it never achieved product-market fit. This experience taught him valuable lessons about focusing on pain pills instead of vitamins.

Vitamin vs. Pain Pill: Understanding the Difference

• Vitamin: A "nice-to-have" product that offers incremental benefits but doesn't solve a critical problem. Customers are less likely to prioritize and pay for vitamins, especially in challenging economic times. Example: a media monitoring tool that is not essential for a PR professional to do their job.

• Pain Pill: A "must-have" solution that directly addresses a significant pain point or problem. Customers are willing to pay for pain pills that save them time, money, or effort. Example: A tool that automates a tedious and time-consuming task.

Parker emphasizes the importance of honestly evaluating your business idea: is it a vitamin or a pain pill?

PodPitch: Validating the Idea and Finding Product-Market Fit

The core of Parker's strategy lies in actively selling a rough version of your product before investing heavily in development. With PodPitch, Parker and his co-founder started by building a large podcast database.

The LinkedIn DM Approach

1. Identify Target Customers: They used LinkedIn to identify founders, small business owners, entrepreneurs, and PR professionals.
2. Direct Messaging: Reached out with personalized messages.
3. Feedback Calls: Offered a 15-minute call to get feedback.
4. The "Awkward Ask": After demonstrating the tool, they asked, "Would you pay for this right now?"

Overcoming the "Nice Idea" Trap

They discovered that people are often polite and will say your idea is good, even if they wouldn't actually pay for it. The direct question forced people to articulate why they wouldn't pay, uncovering crucial insights about their true needs.

Key Discovery: Focusing on the Real Pain Point

The "awkward ask" revealed that people didn't just want help building lists of podcasts (which the tool did initially). They wanted the tool to draft and send the emails to the podcasts, a feature they already had but hadn't emphasized. Within a week of implementing this strategy, they secured their first paying customer.

The Power of the "Why Won't You Pay?" Question

Parker emphasized the importance of understanding the customer's current solutions. By understanding the current process people use to solve the problem and the associated pain points, they can provide a solution.

Ask for permission: Frame the "awkward ask" by asking if you may ask them an uncomfortable question.

Actionable Steps: How to Implement This Strategy

1. Identify Pain Pill or Vitamin: Determine if your idea solves a real problem.
2. Define Target Audience: Identify the specific people who experience this problem.
3. Engage on LinkedIn: Reach out to potential customers with personalized DMs, avoiding generic automated messages.
4. Conduct Feedback Calls: Ask for 15 minutes of their time to get feedback on your idea.
5. Present the Solution: Show them how your product addresses their pain points.
6. Ask the "Awkward" Question: "Would you pay for this right now?" If not, "Why not?"
7. Listen and Iterate: Use the feedback to refine your product and offering.

Pricing as an Experiment

Pricing is a crucial part of the validation process. The speaker used value-based pricing instead of cost-based pricing to help have the pricing conversation.

• Start High: It's easier to come down on price than to go up.

• Anchor High: If the customer quickly agreed to pay, it means that price was too low.

• Factor in Value: What is the customer's current rate for their hourly work?

• Experiment and Iterate: Adjust pricing based on customer response and conversion rates.

• Consider Churn: High churn rates may indicate that pricing is too high for the perceived value.

Track What Matters: Weekly KPI Reports

Implement weekly KPI reports that will give the product momentum. Identify new customers converted or amount of demos booked. This will force you to ask the "awkward question" and track what is working and what is not working.

Key Takeaways

• Validate your business idea before investing significant resources.

• Focus on building pain pills, not vitamins.

• Ask potential customers the "awkward" question: "Would you pay for this right now? Why or why not?"

• Listen to customer feedback and iterate on your product and offering.

• Track key metrics to monitor progress and make informed decisions.