- Recently I got approached by a pre-founder.
He was like,
"I wanna start a SaaS business
"and a lot of domain knowledge on the space.
"I kinda have an idea
"but I don't have a technical co-founder.
"What do I do?"
If you're in a position where you don't have a co-founder
or better yet a technical co-founder.
In this video,
I'm gonna be walking you through the three step process
that I would follow to start SaaS business today.
So you go from zero to launching in the next 90 day period.
Intro.
(upbeat music playing)
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What's up everybody?
Welcome to Unstoppable.
On this channel,
I bring a video every Sunday
and every Wednesday
to help start up founders like you build
and scale SaaS businesses.
So if you're new to the community,
welcome to our community.
Welcome to our unstoppable community of startup founders.
Be sure to hit that subscribe button
and that bell icon.
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I drop an episode every Sunday and Wednesday with TK Energy.
If you are building a SaaS business,
be sure to check out my SaaS startup school.
My SaaS start up school will help you take your raw idea
of a SaaS business
and help you actually codify it
and then launch it within a 90 day period from zero to one.
So if you're interested in that
and going through that journey
and want my help,
be sure to check out SaaS school.
It is now open for enrollment.
I'll share details at the end of this video
and also link to it down below.
Now, when I first started Tawheed,
I was actually a solo founder.
Fortunately,
I knew how to code
but I didn't quite know sales and marketing as well.
So I had to teach myself that.
My belief is that,
if you've got an idea,
if you've got some semblance of a product,
regardless of whether you can code
or not,
you should not let the lack of a co-founder slow you down.
So this has been the advice
that I've given to every startup
that I've come across whether they're technical or not,
you should not wait to find a co founder.
Now luckily for me in my journey,
I ended up with an ex post-facto founder.
This is what Jason Lumpkin calls it and I believe in it.
It's someone that came along later on in the business
that essentially became a co-founder to me.
This is why I believe this even more,
where you should not let a lack of a co-founder
slow you down.
You should just double down on the things
that you need to do to start building your business
and the co-founder will arrive.
If this sounds a little bit like dating advice,
just go live your life
and your love of your life will show up.
It kinda is that's just how the universe works.
But let me break it down into tangible steps.
This is not meant to be a frou-frou law of attraction video.
But if you are interested in that,
check out this law of attraction video
around startup founders.
So if you're excited to dig in
or how to launch your SaaS business within 90 days,
I'm gonna smash that like button
and listing into step number one.
So I would split this up into three months,
right 90 days and within those 90 days,
I would do a specific thing each of those months.
So month number one,
I would actually focus
on clarifying my ideal customer profile
and my core idea.
But more importantly,
I would focus a lot of my time around my SaaS business
and really clarifying my ideal customer profile.
Why?
Because before I try to solve a problem
for a wide range of people,
I need to get very specific on my ideal customer profile,
the group of people that I wanna be serving.
The group of people I happen to know a lot about,
the group of people
with whom I'd probably spent 10000 hours
so that I can start to understand
how to solve the most important problems for them.
So month one,
I would really focus
on really clarifying my ideal customer profile
and my core idea
and starting to do stress tested.
That's month number one.
Now, if you have questions on how to exactly do this,
I do have a 10 point SaaS checklist guide
that goes into these specific questions to ask
and answer.
And I also run a weekly training on how to do this.
It's completely free.
I'll link to it below and tell me more about that as well.
Once I do that,
then month two,
I would start to build an audience
with that group of people
and I would start to build an email list.
Here's the thing.
Most people try to actually go build some product
and try to find a co-founder,
they try to develop some crazy ad that they have.
And then they say,
let's go do sales and marketing.
Let's go hire a marketing person to write a blog
and magically will get 100 users to sign up and all right
I'll post some product on
and then I'll get a million users,
that really doesn't work anymore.
So what you start to do
before you even write a line of code
is A,
clarify your ICP
but B,
start to build an audience with an email list.
And if you're wondering how to do that exactly,
I do this through the form of an unstoppable sales funnel,
you can check out this video right here.
It's called,
"How To Create An Unstoppable Sales Funnel."
I'll link to it down below
and that teaches you
how to actually start to build an audience
before you even write a line of code to build your product.
This is particularly convenient
if you don't have a technical co-founder.
Now before I go into step three,
month number three,
let me just pause here for a second.
Here's the difference in this approach.
You could be person A or person B.
Person A shows up at a meetup,
meets an engineer.
He's like,
"I got this crazy idea, man,
you wanna check out my PowerPoint."
And you try to convince them to come
and join your startup,
right?
Person B is someone that has clarified who they wanna serve.
They have an audience.
They have an email list.
They maybe have a blog.
They maybe have a YouTube channel.
They maybe you have a Twitter account.
With a whole bunch of these people following that person,
this person is putting out content every week
talking about the problems in this space
and how to solve it.
And they're trying to put out there like,
"Hey, we should solve it in this way.
And this is what the software could be."
And they have a group of people that's supporting them,
giving them feedback.
And you've stress tested that.
Which one do you think is more attractive.
The person that has a theory and a PowerPoint
or a spreadsheet
or the person that has an audience,
has leads,
has users
and I'm just waiting for this particular problem
to be solved.
This is the power in this approach.
This is why I say,
first get clarity in your ICP
and then build an audience
because then you can actually stress test your idea,
then you can actually clarify
what the product really is gonna be.
Maybe you'll even find a better idea
for your product based on this conversation
you're having with your audience.
And then you're able to actually go out there with swagger.
So if you're with me on this so far,
before we go on to number three,
can I just get a yes!
In the comments below.
so that I know you're with me
and you're excited to keep moving on this.
And by the way,
I have created a 10 point SaaS checklist
and really walked you through this in detail,
a link to it below
and tell me more about this at the end of the video.
But let's go to number three now.
Number three is when you actually start
to recruit for your co-founder
or a technical co-founder.
Now, if you are a technical founder,
you don't need anybody else.
Honestly, you can just learn sales and marketing.
This is one of the big things we teach in SaaS school.
But if you absolutely cannot code,
then you need to find a technical co founder.
I've met founders who were like,
"I'll just outsource it."
That's the equivalent.
I don't believe in this.
Like I don't think you can outsource startup development
because that's like saying,
I wanna go to the moon.
All I need is to outsource the development
of the spacecraft.
Everything else, we're good.
I know which way the moon is.
The thing is no one cares.
You need to actually build the spacecraft in-house
in order for this to work.
So I'm a big believer
that you have to have to have a technical co-founder.
But if you do it in this very specific way,
your chances of hooking up with a technical co-founder
is that much higher.
So when you get to month number three,
you basically have a refined ICP.
You actually have an audience
and an email list of potential users.
You have a lot of feedback from these people
on what the idea is,
what the product is,
then you start to go out
and start to recruit for a technical founder.
And the difference here is that you've got swagger.
You've got an audience.
An audience is more valuable than a product with no users,
believe it or not.
And so I tell my founders to do one of three things.
Number one,
go find investors in your space.
And by the way,
if you're looking at finding angel investors,
check out this video on
"How To Find Angel Investors."
I'll link to it below,
tells you exactly the type of angel investors to find.
Go find those angel investors
and tell them hey,
"Do you know an engineer
or have start up founders?
"Not quite sure about the idea?
"Here's what I'm working on.
"I have an audience.
"I have a list.
"A valid idea.
"These people want it,
"They're ready to pay for it.
"Do you know someone
"that would be a great co founder for this?"
Investors always track
and follow engineers
that don't have an idea yet.
So they'd be more than happy to actually connect you.
The second thing you should do
is actually hook into online communities.
My SaaS school,
for example,
has founders and pre-founders.
Some of them are engineers,
some of them are not.
And that's an example of a community
where you can find other co-founders right,
they're not quite sure of an idea.
They're going through the same journey as you are
on really honing in on their idea.
So you can actually go into online communities
and start to say,
"Hey, here's my audience.
"Here's what they love.
"Here's what we're looking to build.
"Who's interested in this space."
The third thing you can do then,
is while you're looking to build that SaaS product,
because you have an engaged audience,
you can find ways to monetize that audience.
So maybe you don't have software for them yet
but maybe you can create a membership offering for them.
Maybe you can create a digital book for them.
Maybe you can create some sort of course for them.
I'm not saying this is gonna be the business
that you get into.
I am the biggest believer of SaaS businesses
but you can start to generate revenues
from this engaged audience
while you get to the actual product.
You do all these sweet things on month three,
you will find an amazing technical co-founder.
You will find a way.
Because you will be a person that is valuable.
You will actually have clarified your ICP.
You will have built an audience.
Even if it's 100 people on a mailing list,
that's still better than most people with a product
and no users,
right?
And on top of that,
you will be able to attract the right talent
and recruit them
because they will see
that you are a person of action.
You mean business.
Now, you know what are the three steps
to follow to actually launch your SaaS business in 90 days.
Step number one,
clarify your ICP
and who you want
to serve and your core idea.
Step number two,
build an audience an email list.
And step number three,
go in
and recruit technical talent in the right way
because now you've got swagger.
And when you're going into month number three,
nurture your angel investors hooking online communities,
also sync and monetize that audience as you start
to build the SaaS product.
All of this,
what it does is it actually hooks you into your ICP.
It stress tests your SaaS idea
and it creates a way for you to efficiently,
(upbeat music playing)
Generate quality leads for your SaaS product
as you build it
and essentially allows you to really make sure
you drive to product market fit
in an efficient way.
Now, if you're looking to really deal
with SaaS business
and really implement this model,
I encourage you to check out my SaaS startup school.
Inside of my SaaS startup school,
you will get a monthly EMA,
you'll get my insider podcast,
you'll get hooked in my community.
But most importantly,
you'll get my SaaS startup course,
which will tell you exactly
how to implement this 90 day plan.
They'll tell you exactly how to flesh out your idea,
build an audience
and actually go recruit a technical founder.
These are all things that are super important.
I've created this offering
because I wish it existed when I was starting up
in my Tawheed app journey.
And I've talked to countless founders
who have gotten so much value from the insights
that this course gives you.
So I'll link to it below.
Or you can just go to https://tkkader.com/saas-school
for that.
Also, I also have a free freebie for you.
If you are going through this process
of at least develop your idea,
you should check out my 10 point SaaS checklist.
You can download that at https://tkkader.com/saas-checklist.
Over there,
I'll walk you through about 10 questions
that you can answer.
I also run a live training
that walks you through those questions in a detailed way.
You'll also learn more about my SaaS school
and what it has to offer.
Depending on where you are in the journey.
I wanna make sure I'm there for you
to help you build an incredible SaaS business.
So if you got value from this video,
please smash that like button.
It will mean the world to me
and my team.
If you're new here,
don't forget to hit the subscribe button
and that bell icon
(bell ringing)
because I drop a video like this every Sunday
and every Wednesday
to help you build and scale SaaS businesses.
And lastly remember,
everyone needs a strategy for their life
and their business.
But when you are with us,
yours is gonna be unstoppable.
I'm TK
and I'll see you in the next episode.