What are SaaS founders saying about MVP validation strategies

Most founders spend six months building a product only to realize absolutely nobody wants to pay for it. The "build it and they will come" strategy is a fantasy that kills more startups than lack of funding ever will. Real world data suggests that 90% of startups fail, and a massive chunk of those failures stem from zero market need.

TL;DR: The New Era of Validation

The standard advice to build a feature-complete MVP is outdated and dangerously expensive. Modern SaaS founders are shifting toward early-stage validation that requires zero code. The goal is to prove that a "hair-on-fire" problem exists by securing "skin in the game" from potential users. This article explores four core strategies: the "Fake Door" landing page, the Concierge MVP where you perform the service manually, the power of cold outreach for discovery, and the ultimate validation: the pre-sale. By focusing on customer pain points rather than feature lists, you can pivot faster and save thousands in development costs. Validation is about finding a market that is literally screaming for a solution.

The Death of the "Build First" Mentality

Mainstream advice often tells you to build a "Minimal Viable Product" and then see if people like it. That is a fast track to bankruptcy; validation doesn't happen in your code editor, it happens in the market.

If you cannot find 10 people willing to talk to you about their problems, you certainly won't find 1,000 people willing to pay for your solution. You should be spending 80% of your time on calls and 20% of your time on strategy before a single line of backend logic is written.

Stop Asking for Permission

Founders often fall into the trap of asking friends and family for feedback on their idea. This is useless because people are generally too nice to tell you your baby is ugly.

Instead, use the "Mom Test" framework to ask about past behaviors rather than future intentions. Don't ask "Would you use this?"; ask "Tell me about the last time you struggled with this specific task."

The "Fake Door" and Smoke Testing

The fastest way to test demand is to create a landing page that looks like a finished product. Tools like Carrd or Framer allow you to spin up a professional site in under an hour.

The goal isn't just to get email signups; it is to measure high-intent actions. If someone clicks a "View Pricing" button, that is a much stronger signal than a simple email sub.

Measuring Interaction, Not Just Visits

A common mistake is looking at raw traffic and thinking you have a winner. You need to look at the "Action Rate" of your visitors.

If 5% of visitors click your call-to-action, you might have a product. If 0.5% of visitors click, you have a branding or a problem-selection issue that no amount of fancy UI will fix.

"A waitlist of 1,000 people sounds great until you realize only 2% of them are actually willing to open their wallets when the time comes."

The Magic of Pre-Selling and LOIs

If you are building for B2B, a Letter of Intent (LOI) is your best friend. This is a non-binding document where a company agrees to trial or purchase your software once a specific feature set is met.

Even better than an LOI is the actual pre-sale. Offer a "Founding Member" discount that requires a payment upfront to help fund development.

Why Money is the Only Metric

You can't pay your rent with "likes" or "waiting list" signups. When a customer gives you their credit card information, the relationship changes from a casual chat to a professional commitment.

If a prospect says "I'd definitely buy this once it's built," ask them to prove it by paying 50% of the annual fee now. Their response will tell you everything you need to know about the actual value of your idea.

1. Create a Stripe payment link for a "Beta Access" seat.
2. Send it to the people who said they loved your idea.
3. Watch how many people actually click "Pay."

The Concierge MVP Strategy

Before you build an automated AI-driven workflow, try being the AI. The Concierge MVP involves you manually performing the service that your software will eventually automate.

If you are building an automated bookkeeping tool, start by doing someone's books in Google Sheets. This allows you to see the edge cases and friction points that users actually face day-to-day.

Doing Things That Don't Scale

Manual work is the best way to understand the user's workflow. It is much easier to change a spreadsheet than it is to rewrite a database schema.

Once you have manually solved the problem for 3 to 5 customers, you will know exactly which parts of the process are the most painful. Only then should you start thinking about automating those specific steps with code.

Cold Outreach as a Reality Check

You don't need a marketing budget to validate a SaaS. You need a LinkedIn account or an email address and a bit of thick skin.

Send 50 to 100 personalized messages to your target demographic. Don't pitch your product; pitch a conversation about their biggest headaches.

Navigating the "Help Me" Angle

People love to share their expert opinions, but they hate being sold to. Frame your outreach as "I'm looking to learn more about how [Role] handles [Problem]."

If you get a reply, you have started the validation process. If your messages are ignored by 95% of recipients, your value proposition isn't sharp enough or you are targeting the wrong people.

• Avoid generic templates.
• Reference a specific pain point they likely have.
• Keep the "Ask" small, such as a 15-minute chat.

Distribution is Part of Validation

A fatal flaw in many validation strategies is ignoring how you will actually reach people. If you can't find a way to get 100 visitors to your landing page today, you won't magically find them after you spend 3 months coding.

You should validate your distribution channel at the same time you validate your product. If your target audience is on Reddit, spend time in those subreddits seeing if people are actually complaining about the problem you want to solve.

The Channel-Product Fit

Sometimes the product is great, but the channel is too expensive. If it costs you $50 in ads to get one signup for a $10/month tool, your business model is broken from day one.

Testing different channels early helps you realize if your customer acquisition cost (CAC) will eventually allow for a profitable business. Don't wait until launch day to find out that your audience is impossible to reach.

Conclusion: Build for the Desperate

The most successful SaaS products aren't "nice to haves"; they are "must-haves" for a very specific group of people. Your goal during the validation phase is to find the people who are so frustrated with their current "solution" that they are willing to use your buggy, manual, early-stage version.

Stop worrying about scalability and start worrying about utility. If you can solve a problem for one person using a Trello board and some manual emails, you have a business. The code just makes it more profitable later on. Focus on the pain, ask for the money early, and don't be afraid to kill an idea that doesn't get traction.