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8 Steps Mylance Followed to Build Our New SaaS Tool - Steal Them For Your Business · Founder Unfiltered - What Founders Think But Never Say

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  Welcome to another episode of 6 Figure Secrets for fractional
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  Experts. My name is Bradley Jacobs.
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  I'm your host, founder and CEO of my lands.
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  Today's episode talks about a new product that we've built and
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  it's a journey into how we got to actually building this
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  product, giving ourselves the best chance that users love it,
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  it adds value and they retain for the long term.
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  And I'm going to share this step by step process.
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  I've outlined 8 steps that we followed very rigorously.
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  And the cool thing about this is you can apply this framework to
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  any business. So if it's your fractional
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  business and you're offering a service, if you are building a
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  product, anything you're selling a, any kind of thing that you're
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  selling, you really want to make sure like, do people want this?
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  And so we went on this whole journey to make sure that over
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  the last really like four months to make sure that people wanted
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  to buy this thing. And we are ready now.
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  We've gotten our first users on it.
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  They're super excited. And I'm not surprised because we
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  followed this really great process to make sure that we'd
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  build something that they loved. So I'm going to go through all
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  of the steps right here, right now.
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  The first thing we did is even before we talked to users,
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  because that always seems like the first thing, is we wrote
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  down hypothesis based on everything we've learned and
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  not, look, we've been in business for five years, so it's
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  not like we're starting from scratch.
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  We've learned a lot. We've learned a lot what works
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  and doesn't work. I probably talked to you well
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  over 1000 fractionals at this point.
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  So we based on everything that we've learned, wrote down some
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  initial hypothesis and those hypothesis looked like this is a
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  problem in the market, right? There is a problem that people
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  don't know how to find clients and more specifically don't know
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  how to use LinkedIn to find clients, but believe that
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  LinkedIn is a great source to find clients.
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  And so there's a big problem there.
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  So hypothesis like that, we wrote down four or five
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  different hypothesis. That's step one.
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  Then what we did is we built a question list that would
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  validate or invalidate those hypothesis when we were talking
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  to users. So Step 2 was combination of
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  building out those questions and then reaching out to our
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  customers to just ask them from a total curiosity perspective to
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  what extent these things are true or not true, right.
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  So we asked them how they use LinkedIn today, how they were
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  thinking about LinkedIn, how important it was to their
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  business development efforts. Why didn't they post more on
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  LinkedIn? What would be their ideal
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  posting strategy cadence on down the line, right?
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  Like what were all the things that were true about their
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  experience with LinkedIn finding new clients?
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  The way that we found these customers is 1.
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  I have a community, right? So it certainly helps that I've
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  been building this business for many years.
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  I built up a community, I built up a newsletter.
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  But also we just went to LinkedIn and I was honest, I was
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  like, look, we're building a new product.
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  I'd really love to get your take.
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  Are you willing to spend 20 minutes on the phone with me
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  giving your honest answers about LinkedIn and shaping the
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  direction of this product? And you'd be shocked at how
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  easily people are willing to say yes and help out.
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  People love helping other people.
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  It's just part of what drives people.
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  So it was pretty easy to get people on the phone.
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  We talked to over 30 user interviews across the span of
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  about a month and the team. So I tag teamed it with one of
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  my employees and after every single interview, we would take
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  the notes down and we would note whether the hypothesis that we
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  were testing were validated or invalidated by the this person.
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  One thing that I do want to mention is you need to make sure
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  that the person you're talking to is in a certain buyer
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  persona. And I'm going to make this
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  really tangible. So if a brand new consultant, we
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  are interviewing them, they haven't even found their first
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  client yet. They're going to give pretty
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  different answers probably than someone who's been doing this
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  for three years, has a roster of clients and has figured out a
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  lot of the ways to acquire acquire clients already.
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  So segmenting the different interviews based on the
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  different kinds of buyers is really important to figure out
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  the nuances and how they answer and what hypothesis are true for
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  different buyers. Because a software for a brand
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  new consultant might be totally different than a software for an
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  experienced 1. So we're actually finding out
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  different problems for different people, and for us, we are
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  actually looking for slightly more experienced consultants.
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  It doesn't mean you need three years and 50 clients, but the
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  people just starting out, frankly have a different mindset
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  and have a different problem set than someone who's been doing
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  this even for a few months and already has a few clients under
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  their belt. So that's Step 2.
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  Step 3 is taking all of the interviews that we did and
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  really starting to brainstorm what is the MVP?
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  What is the total minimum viable product we could build based on
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  the hypothesis that were validated, the problems that we
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  saw in the market, and what could we build?
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  That's the simplest, most direct solution that would address one
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  major pain, .1 major pain point. There can be sub pain points
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  that it addresses, but I really wanted to focus on one big one.
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  Once we did that, and I'm just going to share examples.
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  So really the biggest problem is that people didn't know what to
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  post on LinkedIn that would resonate with their audience.
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  So they they felt LinkedIn was valuable.
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  They wanted to post. Sometimes they were posting, but
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  they didn't know what they, if they were posting, it was
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  valuable. And sometimes not knowing what
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  to post stopped them from posting altogether.
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  So there's they're kind of stuck.
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  So we're like, okay, what can we build?
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  What is the simplest version of what we could build that would
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  solve these problems? And basically what we came up
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  with was a content calendar. So we'd say, okay, we're going
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  to take in your ideal customer. We're going to take in their
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  pain points. We're going to take in the value
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  that you add and experiences you've had in the past.
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  And we're frankly going to tell you what to write.
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  We're going to say Monday, write this Wednesday, write this
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  Friday, write this. And we can use AI to help us,
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  but there's also a manual component to make sure that the
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  content calendar is really strong.
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  And we're going to build this all in no code tools, right?
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  We're not going to go hire a developer and spend thousands of
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  dollars and go build a software. I'm going to go get a no code
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  prototype done literally in a day.
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  So between Airtable, Zapier, Open AI and Notion, all of the I
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  built this whole thing in a day. So build the simplest version
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  because all we're trying to do with this early stage is test.
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  Does the thing that we built solve the problem that we
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  identified in the user interviews?
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  It's as simple as that. So we built the MVP and then
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  that's step four. Step 5 is now I got to get
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  people to test it, but getting people to test it that don't
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  have any skin in the game is only so valuable.
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  So I really wanted to get paying customers.
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  So did a little bit of pricing research, did some, you know,
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  honestly back of the envelope math and we went back to those
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  30 customers saying, hey, we built a basic solution to solve
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  the problem. You told me that you had.
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  Do you want to be a beta tester? I will give you a 50% discount
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  for a lifetime of the product. You're grandfathered in forever.
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  The retail price will be 279 a month, so the beta price will be
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  134 fifty a month. And again, we'll grandfather you
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  in. And if we ever lower the retail
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  price, you will be grandfathered in at 50% off retail no matter
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  what the retail price is in exchange for detailed feedback.
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  So you get to be super honest with us.
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  You get to jump on a call with us every few weeks and tell us
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  what you like, what you don't like, and be super radically
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  direct and honest with all of that feedback.
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  When we went back to those 30 users, six of them were an easy
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  yes. I had planned to take a maximum
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  of 10 message. All of them got six that were
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  like, Oh my God, I'm in. That sounds amazing.
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  I was like, OK, great. So 6 was really manageable
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  because we could deliver the product, which is pretty manual
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  to deliver without the software and we can really get those that
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  feedback. So we were meeting every two
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  weeks. We were documenting everything
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  that they said, you know, obviously using Fathom, using AI
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  to record all the calls, get all the notes, put all the notes
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  into a Google notebook, make sure we had everything.
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  O really Step 6 is working with those customers for the span of
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  a few months. We actually worked for them for
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  over 2 months to really get all their feedback.
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  And at this point, it's more than just getting feedback.
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  I mean, we're delivering a paying product, right?
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  So at this point, we are delivering a product, we're
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  getting feedback, we're learning what's working.
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  And frankly, they were loving it.
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  They were really loving it and they had more ideas about how it
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  could be better, but the value was there.
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  Like they were getting this clear calendar of what to post.
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  We'd also put a hook in there. So here's how this the post
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  should start. And we tell them what kind of
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  post it should be. So it should be a listicle or a
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  case study first person anecdote on down the line.
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  So we would tell them what kind of post it would be.
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  We would give them actually 2 prompts per each day so they
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  could choose the one that resonated better with them.
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  And then we'd give them the hook.
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  And it was just a way for them to not even think about what to
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  post on LinkedIn. It's like, oh, I opened my
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  content calendar and I post this after we got their feedback for
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  a few months. I had enough confidence because
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  nobody churned. Everybody was happy.
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  Some people were like outrageously happy, and I
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  thought the price point was really solid.
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  I mean, they had no problems with the price and I thought it
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  was pretty good. I think it's pretty good for a
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  SAS product. And so the next step was, OK,
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  let's go build this thing, let's go build the software because
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  one of the biggest things that the calendar could not do is it
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  could not draft the post for them.
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  And I really like people were saying that, you know, this is
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  great Bradley, but I would like it to save me more time.
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  I'm using AI to generate, to draft the post when I could be,
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  you know, using your tool. And also I want the tool to
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  sound like me, right? I want the post to sound like
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  actually I wrote it. So can you train an AI to sound
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  like me more and more over time? I was like, yes, we can do that.
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  So step step 7 was all right, we need to go find someone to build
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  this. And so I basically found a small
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  agency that specializes in quick building of MVPS because I don't
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  need this big robust massive $100,000 thing.
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  I don't have that kind of cash in in the business anyway to
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  make that kind of investment. So I found a company to build me
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  an MVP in 21 days that basically cuts a lot of corners to build
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  you a simple, easy to use, but effective product.
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  And so we scoped out everything with them.
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  I met with them. I honestly hired the first
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  company I talked to. I was like I'm ready, I'm ready
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  to go. They had all the right answers
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  for me. And so found a company that
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  would build it for only a few $1000.
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  I can build it in three weeks and get me all the features that
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  I needed as they were building the way that they worked is they
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  would pretty much release a version of it, a draft and then
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  get my feedback. So we actually went back and
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  forth over 10 times, which, you know, there's two ways to build
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  products. The first way is you define
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  everything, all the designs, all the requirements, and then you
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  kind of like go build it soup to nuts and test it at the end.
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  The other way is this more iterative approach and they both
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  have pros and cons not worth getting into.
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  I will say it was a pretty lengthy iterative approach to
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  really make sure that I was getting the product at the end
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  of the day that I wanted. But we got there.
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  And so after 10 cycles back and forth of feedback, reviewing the
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  product, iterating, testing, making sure really everything
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  worked the way I intended, but it was still this simple
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  version, then it was ready. And so it was then taking that
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  next step, this is the final step really is getting your
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  first users onto the software. And so of course, I'm gonna take
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  my existing beta customers, which now is at 11 because we
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  had added new people as I was just talking to folks.
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  And so getting them to test the software like they had been
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  using my no code solution. They were loving it.
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  And now it's like, hey, I want, I've been talking about this
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  obviously with them that we're building this software now you
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  get to test it. And so that's what we've been
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  doing most recently. They are totally blown away
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  because it's, it's a much big bigger step up from the no code
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  solution. It solves everything that the no
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  code solution did, but more right because it actually drafts
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  the post. It learns your writing style
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  over time. It learns the analytics of a
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  post of what was effective and not effective.
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  So it has some real power based into it that is going to make
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  your content on LinkedIn easier to write and more effective over
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  time, which is really what we're going for.
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  So those are the steps and those are the steps that we've been
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  following over the last four months.
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  I'm incredibly excited. I've learned a ton about what
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  works and what doesn't work in launching new products.
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  And so this is really the best method that I have come up with.
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  As far as what's next, we will be getting more and more users
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  onto the software, starting with the existing beta customers that
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  were on the no code solution. Super tight feedback loops,
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  right? So again, meeting with them
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  every week, every two weeks, getting clear, honest, direct
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  impressions of what's working and what's not working.
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  We'll prioritize improvements, any bugs of course, but features
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  that they're truly requesting to make the process easier,
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  software easier to use, more effective or easier to use on
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  our side. And only once I've really seen
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  the evidence of clear product market fit, which is of course
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  users are retaining. But more importantly, when they
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  talk to me that they are loving it and they're using it and
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  they're getting value out of it. Like it's truly solving the
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  initial problem that we diagnosed at the beginning.
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  So that's what's next. And then of course, we can
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  scale, right? We can throw marketing at it.
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  We can, you know, build up a referral program, get
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  partnerships, the whole thing. It's not that hard honestly to
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  sell this product. The hard part about any product
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  in my opinion is the long term retention because even if users
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  stay for four or five months, you don't really have much.
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  The end of the day, you have a massive leaky bucket and and
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  users just turn over. So you really want users staying
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  for years. That's what makes an amazing,
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  amazing product. And so I'm not ready to really
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  scale this thing until I'm 1000% sure that that's there.
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  All the signs are that it is there, but it's early.
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  And so we'll continue to get users on at the beta price.
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  There's no contracts, there's no setup to you.
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  We're making it super simple in order to make sure that we're
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  building the right thing. So that's all for today's
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  episode. I hope you got some value out of
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  this. It was really fun to record this
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  one because it kind of took me back on this journey of being
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  super intentional of building something that I, I truly, it's
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  everything to me to make sure that it really solves the
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  problem. It's not just about making money
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  or, or building a cool tool like I want.
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  I need this tool to solve the problem.
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  That's what we're here for and with that, I will let you go if
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  you want to come check it out. We are building a wait list.
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  You can go to the Mylands website and just sign up for the
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  wait list and I'll let you know when when it's ready for you to
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  test it out with that, have an amazing rest of your day.
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  Come share with me if you like this episode.
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  I love hearing from you guys on LinkedIn is probably the easiest
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  or if you're in our Myland Slack community, shoot me a note
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  there. But hope you have an amazing
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  day. Send this to a friend and give
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  us a review means the world to us.
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  Obviously not free to produce this so just offering value and
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  helping you on your fractional journey.
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  Have an amazing day.