tales from 17 money-validated products - How to get validation for the products you plan to go to market with?

1. Pre-Product
Validation

2. Pre-Product
Validation

3. Tales from 17 Money-
Validated Products

4. Florin
Muresan
CEO at the Squirrly Company
01
17 Products.
Validated.
Most of them at the Squirrly
Company.
02

5. We deliver insanely
great marketing
software

6. 6,455+
Paying B2B customers who purchased subscriptions.
This doesn’t include agency subscriptions or one time payments.

7. Over 90 Countries.

8. Great validation is
what made us
profitable in the
first 9 months.

9. OUR 2012
First Round of Customer
Development August
Started Company.
Received Investment.
Second Round of
Customer Development.
Alpha Version. First One
Year Payment.
September
October
November

10. OUR 2013
Official BETA January
Launched on WordPress
Directory.
First 5 Customers
Ramen-Profitable. We no
longer had to rely on
outside funding.
3rd Feb
4th Feb
October

11. So do you think Pre-Product validation works?
Most people skip ahead. Build the product. Then
find out nobody cares or they can’t sell it.
I would never build a product before validating it…
but sometimes I do.

12. It’s a huge gamble. If you’re not
super skilled, nor super
experienced: Don’t do it.

13. How do you validate that
people need the product you
think of building?

14. TYPES OF VALIDATION
Would anyone care to use
it for free?
Is there any channel that
helps me easily on-board
new users that convert?
Do they pay to have
access to it? Don’t ask.
Charge.
Do I have more than one
channel which
consistently brings me
customers?
Interest Validation
Channel-Market-Fit
Money Validation
Real-Market-Fit

15. These are the types.
Can be done WITH or WITHOUT the product.

16. When they are done WITHOUT the product, they are
called: pre-Product

17. ABOUT
US
17 Products that
have been validated
with the Money-
Validation type.

18. Cif2 net apps
Squirrly SEO for
WordPress
Starbox PRO Udemy Course
02
01
04
03

19. ContentLook
Squirrly SEO -
cloud version
Squirrly Social Squirrly SPY
07
05
08
06

20. GetGrowth.tv -
twitch for
marketing
Education Cloud
2020
Squirrly - Web
Developer Kits
Squirrly Digital -
One License. All
of Squirrly.11
09
12
10

21. Squirrly SEO -
App for Shopify
OneGeek -
donations &
ecommerce
Agency
Productized like
McDonald’s
Expectation
Marketing Book15
13
16
14
SERP Checker
17

22. We are always doing validations.
It’s a continuous process, because the market keeps moving. New trends, new players, new ideas, new needs. All of
these can break something that was validated 7 years ago. Something validated 7 years ago might lose its
importance and become obsolete in the new order of the world.

23. SEO was dead.
Then came content marketing.
Now content marketing is almost dead.
SEO rises once more.
Internet Marketing Was All The Rage. No
longer a thing. Digital Marketing is the
game now.

24. squirrly.co/developers/
Collaboration with Agencies
offering many services to
customers for whom they
build sites.
They build sites (mostly
WordPress sites) for
customers.
SEO, Social Media, Web
Design.
Agencies (full-service)
Web Developers
Freelancers

25. squirrly.co/developers/
Do they do everything? Or
are they mostly tech
suppliers?
They perform for
customers.
This brings many
differences.
Hands-on / just suppliers of
amazing tech
Different jobs
On-going support / just
a one time thing.

26. PHASE
So it begins.
00

27. What problem needs solving?

28. Does it REALLY need solving?
Is this a problem worth solving?

29. Is it worth solving:
- For you (passion?)
- For other people? - is anyone complaining?
- How many of them are there in the world? - can
you identify many people complaining?

30. Tools of the trade:
- Look at search queries (google, twitter, quora)
- Targeted forums, FB groups, comments on blog
posts
- Study reviews about competitors - maybe you
find huge pain points they are missing.

31. Can you find something?
- If YES -> move on to Phase 01.
- Otherwise… think of a different problem.

32. PHASE
Ask.
01

33. What do you think about
problem?
How often do you interact
with problem?
Have you talked to other
people about problem?
Are you actively looking for
solutions to bypass
problem?
Ask the people you think have the problem:

34. Does it keep you up at
night?
Is it one of your TOP 3
problems RIGHT NOW?
Is it something you started
thinking about every waking
hour / every day / every
week / every month / every
year.
Is there anyone out there
trying to solve this for you…
right now?
Ask the people you think have the problem:

35. Do YOU think the problem is well defined?
- Do all of them feel it?
- Do they feel completely different things about
the problem?

36. - Ask them: If there’s one thing you could change
about the way you Z what would it be?
^^ the answers to this give us more insight into
what the solution should be than anything else.

37. Tools of the trade:
- Keep notes after every single interaction
- Buy them coffee / tea
- Tell them that you gained valuable insight and
that you’ll think of a way to solve it

38. PHASE
Wireframe. Show. Don’t
tell.
02

39. Tools of the trade:
- Wireframe.
- Hit the list. Get them to a new meeting.
- Look them in the eye as they play with the
wireframe. Do their eyes glow at some point?
Do you feel like they’re reaching “Aha!”
moments?

40. What you can try:
- Show different wireframes to different groups.
- Have 50 people?
- Show wireframe 1 to first 10. See if needs re-
adapting. Then show to next 10. ETC.

41. PHASE
Divide and Conquer.
03

42. - What makes them different from one another?

43. How many
Customer
Profiles can
you make?

45. - What can you complete about each persona
(customer profile) ?
What do they: see, hear, do, think, dream, fear,
obsess over, etc.
How big is the problem for each of them?

46. How did each profile react to your Wireframe?

47. PHASE
Just one more thing
before I build.
04

48. Hi %FIRSTNAME%,
I saw that you're responsible with training employees and I wanted to introduce myself.
My name is Florin Muresan and I'm working on Learning Solutions by Squirrly, that helps you perfectly train
new employees, new customer support reps and even new sales agents.
Things have been going great, we onboarded large Pharmaceutical companies and other enterprises from
Europe -- but we think that we can still make the product better.
Given your experience with workforce training and employee development I thought you might be able to shed
some light as to how useful you find our product.
https://www.producthunt.com/upcoming/learning-solutions-by-squirrly
For that, I would ask you to join our Launch webinar and see what we've been working on. Then, after the
event, let me know how you find the product.
https://www.producthunt.com/upcoming/learning-solutions-by-squirrly
Or if you'd like a Demo before the event with our Training Expert, I could arrange that. Just hit the reply button
Best regards,
Florin

49. 1) Make an Invision presentation. UI and UX.
Clickable. Seems to “work” like the real thing
that you would actually build for them.
2) Get more people from each profile to see the
new presentation.
3) How many of them (and from which group) tell
you: - where do I sign-up? Can I use this today?
Where can I pay? Do you accept PayPal? Can I
pre-pay for a whole year?

50. That’s how
it’s done.

51. - I want to pay right
now
… hint: choose
this guy

52. REVIEW
What you have.
05

53. - A clear customer profile (at least 1) who will
spend money on your APP asap.
- Other profiles who will potentially buy in the
future, if you expand the solution or prove it on
the market
- A channel (at least one). You’ve managed to get
people talking to you. That means you already
know how to get them.

54. - Think of how you brought in the ones from the
Persona who will buy asap. Bring more of them.

55. NOTES
….
06

56. - Email List
- Ship by Product Hunt
- LinkedIN - in-message ADS
- Prospecting and using SalesFlare for outreach
- Early Adopter
- 3 Features versus 20 Features.
- Going after markets filled with competitors, but
un-happy customers.

57. - Product Launch Formula
- Not enough validation interviews. Shopify App
Problems.

58. Startup Espresso
- Apple podcasts
- Spotify
- Stitcher

59. squirrly.co/developers/
Collaboration with Agencies
offering many services to
customers for whom they
build sites.
They build sites (mostly
WordPress sites) for
customers.
SEO, Social Media, Web
Design.
Agencies (full-service)
Web Developers
Freelancers