Selling…Before Building?

Photo by Cytonn Photography on Unsplash

Note: This post is part of an ongoing series I'm writing to help people learn how to build and how to sell. Some of these posts are thought experiments, others are helpful resources I have created or found that will help you create and sell, better.

Here is a position I'll take to make this post more interesting: Many entrepreneurs and business owners make the mistake of focusing too much on building, without first selling a product or service that truly solves a problem for their customers. In this post, I’ll explore the power of selling before building, and how it can set you up for success over the long term.

While I started my working life as a software engineer, I drifted into marketing after reading and working with Seth Godin and Bernadette Jiwa, diving into the work of Donald Miller, Dan Kennedy's and many others, and generally becoming fascinated by the powers of connection, persuasion and empathy to drive change.

If you decide that selling before building is the way to go, here are a few things to consider:

Validating Your Idea

The major benefit of selling an idea before building anything is that it allows you to validate your idea before investing more time and money into product development. Idea validation, if done well and consistently, can save huge amounts of time and money and can actually accelerate the building part. It can also help surface ideas that don't have a future by indicating a lack of market demand (watch out for this and don't fool yourself!). If, in speaking with your potential customers, you manage to get them to commit to buying your product, that's huge proof that there's a demand for what you're offering.

Generating Cash Flow

Another benefit of selling before building is that you can potentially generate a little cash flow from day one. While this early money can fund further research, it often isn't enough and is better thought of as a powerful motivator to keep going - not only do paying customers now expect something of you, it’s also motivating for you to keep creating value.

Building a Customer Base

By pre-selling your product, you'll also be building a customer base before your product even exists. These early customers can be crucial (I'll talk about the concept of the Minimum Viable Audience in a later article), providing valuable feedback on your product, helping spread the word to their networks, and even becoming strong advocates for your product.

Avoiding Wasted Time and Resources

Mostly, selling before building can help you avoid wasting time and resources on a product that nobody wants. I come back to this again because it’s by far the greatest “sin” I see committed by entrepreneurs. By focusing on sales first, you can not only get a better understanding of your customer’s needs and wants, but you can also start to get ideas about distribution channels, pricing strategies, and customer segments.

To all the devs and engineers out there, I get it - building is fun! You get to ideate, problem-solve, design and code something new right now. However, by even getting the time spent selling and building on par to 50/50 each, you can better validate your idea, potentially generate cash flow, build an early strong customer base, and avoid wasting time and resources.