How I validated an idea and collected $3k

Introduction

Creating a product and launching it online is a daunting process. Many entrepreneurs fail to validate their product idea before taking the plunge. In this blog post, I will share my experience of validating a product idea using a landing page and a lifetime deal.

I will explain how I was able to sell 20 licenses in 7 days, and 50 licenses in 2 months, collecting ~$3,000 in the process.

Creating the Landing Page

The first step I took was to create a landing page on which I could showcase my product and offer a lifetime deal. I used a combination of visuals and text to explain why my product was unique and why customers should buy it. I was careful to make sure that the page was easy to understand and navigate.

Offering a Lifetime Deal

Initially, I thought I could collect emails from people interested, but I needed a stronger validation that payment would provide.

So I decided to offer a lifetime deal for $69.99 USD. This was an attractive offer as customers would be able to use my product indefinitely, instead of having to purchase a subscription. I also included a money-back guarantee to increase people's confidence in my product.

To collect the payments, I chose to use a payment platform called Paddle. Paddle allowed me to securely process payments and sell the deal.

I also set up an email sequence to inform customers of updates and thank them for their purchases.

After setting up these systems, I was ready to prelaunch my product 💪

Leveraging Twitter

Once I had created my landing page, I turned my attention to leveraging social media to get the word out about my product. With a Twitter account that had around 4,000 followers, I was well-positioned to promote my product.

I began by tweeting about my product, explaining its features and offering the lifetime deal. Finally, I provided customer support through Twitter, responding to people's questions and addressing their concerns.

These efforts allowed me to reach a wide audience and spread the word about my product. In addition, it provided me with valuable insights into what people were looking for and allowed me to adjust my offering accordingly.

I tweeted every day, for 7 days, tweets similar to this one 👇

Results

The strategy was a success. Within a week, I had sold 20 licenses and within two months, I had sold 40 licenses.

In total, I collected $2,500 from these sales with 2k unique visitors to the landing page.

Creating a Public Roadmap

When the product was ready to be used as private beta, I sent all the LTD buyers an invitation email.

To further engage with them and collect valuable feedback, I decided to create a public roadmap where users could contribute by adding feature requests and voting.

This allowed me to get an understanding of what features my customers wanted and prioritize my development efforts accordingly.

I chose to use a web-based platform called Canny to create the roadmap.

Canny allowed me to create a roadmap and track the progress of feature requests. I shared the link in my email sequence, this gave the early adopters an easy way to view and contribute to the roadmap.

Conclusion

Using a landing page and offering a lifetime deal is an effective way to validate a product idea. In my case, it allowed me to test out my product with real customers and collect valuable feedback. It also allowed me to make a profit from my product before investing more time and money into it.

It’s important to highlight that even if the pre-launch is successful, there is no guarantee that the product will succeed, but it’s a good way to start with a solid validation base.

What’s up now?

Recently, I converted my product to a subscription plan, with a 7-days free trial.

The product is available at inboxs.io.

I'm eager to see how people will use the product and to develop it according to their needs.

Thanks for reading!
Cheers 🙌