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1,2,3 Product Weekly #1: How to get MVP Pre-sells.

Author

Okerosi Davis
January 27, 2024

Hello and welcome to 1,2,3 Product Weekly - read by startup founders, creators, and product marketers looking to constantly learn. Product Letter is a membership resource designed to help you get proven and practical insights on how the best do product marketing.

Here is the breakdown of what to expect every Saturday in this newsletter issue:

  1. Thought leadership insight on launching a product, feature successfully

  2. Two product marketing frameworks with examples.

  3. Three examples of startups and how they are winning with product marketing.

1. Chill Piper’s multiple product lines move

Hey, Okerosi here.

I was listening to Nathan Latka interview the CEO of Chill Piper, Nicolas Vandenberghe discussing their recent growth - from $16m ARR to $30m ARR in two short years.

Nicolas revealed a couple of secrets worth noting:

Launching multiple product lines

The right way to do it is first to ask these two vital questions;

  • What product is close to what we currently have?

  • Which product in the roadmap is likely to succeed?

Then, bring every stakeholder on board to contribute by giving clear reasons why one product should take precedence over the other.

Finally, document every order of operations so that product development and roadmap are clear to everyone.

Integration with 60+ partners.

The old way is where you only integrate with those partners you benefit from.

The new way is a mutual relationship. Your partners sell your product to their audience while you do the same for them. Chill Piper has integrated with mutual partners like Gong, Clearbit, G2, and more.

2. MVP Pre-sells and 1,000+ reviews email template

MVP Pre-sells

Yash, the CEO and founder of Saral - an influencer marketing search solution was recently interviewed by Nathan on how they scaled to $34k MRR.

One insight that stood out for me was the MVP pre-sells. During the MVP stage, Yash talked to those in the influencer marketing space about the challenges they were currently facing.

Then, Yash went ahead and developed an MVP on Figma, and pre-sold it to his first 5 customers

Yash proved the need for the solution before writing any line of code, and it paid off.

Lesson: Talk to buyers to determine if they are willing to pay for the solution, and always start to lean on new product launches.

1,000+ G2 Reviews

Vfairs designed a unique email template that generated over 1000 G2 reviews and scaled their business to over $30m ARR without hiring any outbound sales team.

Key insights to note:

  • Short and call to action subject line

  • Mentions the exact solution they used.

  • Details the favor they are asking and why it’s important.

  • Clear the time obstacle ( takes 5 minutes tops)

  • CTA link to the exact G2 site

  • Repetition on the favor, time frame, and requests for feedback

3. Community, launch in public, and the competition

Plausible analytics wins with community

The community spreads your product through word of mouth. Check the Github traffic and the direct one. ( 1.9k third and 200k first in that order).

Here are more ways Plausible Analytics won by building a community.

  • Being active on X, Indie Hackers, Hacker News, and Mastodon.

  • Published a ton of content (one went viral on Hacker News)

  • Building great products that spread through word of mouth.

Kleo launches in public; 0 to 6,000 users

The rise of Creator + SaaS is becoming evident. Jake Ward scaled Kleo from 0 to 6,000 users with only 4 posts on LinkedIn. Here are my takeaways on launching a product in public.

1. Start promoting your SaaS tool early
2. Create a dedicated LP to collect emails.
3. Show, don't just tell on how the tool works
4. Ride on the wave of bigger creators if possible.
5. Constantly improve the product in public.

TaxTaker keeps their enemies even closer

Here is how they do it - by asking these questions.

  • Does their messaging resonate?

  • What are they doing wrong and right?

  • What are their weakness with customers?

  • What pain points are they focused on?

Here is where they do it;

  • They looked into forums

  • They checked comments on their ads

  • They mined comments on the social posts

  • They asked customers early on, on sales calls.

Join us in Product Letter

Become a member on Patreon, and get all the archives and deep dives like this; Product Positioning; Why 95% Miss the Mark.

Also, let's work on your startup - from product positioning, launch and even scaling. Send me a message on LinkedIn.

Thanks for reading!

God’s speed,