Ukrainian solo founder Sergey Zuev launched a couple of unsuccessful businesses.
He then switched tactics and used only personal funds to take his startup from zero to $5,000 monthly recurring revenue (MRR).
His method was as follows:
First, he learned about their suffering while conversing with potential customers (from his failed startup). They were prepared to spend money in order to alleviate this discomfort.
To solve this problem (which he did not yet have), he built a website, gaconnector.com. You can follow online shoppers right through to a closed sale by integrating Google Analytics with your sales software.
Third, Sergey advertised it on Adwords and Quora.
Fourth, as a result, he secured his first New Zealand client, who paid him $3,000 up front to develop the prototype.
5. The client provided detailed instructions on how to develop this solution.
He began selling the solution to new customers after delivering it to the first one. Recently, one of them was a Fortune 250 firm.
The end result is a yearly MRR of $5,000 (with 95% of customers paying for the entire year in advance).
All of this was accomplished without the help of a financial backer or the sacrifice of the author’s own resources at the outset.
As an afterthought, here’s a saying of mine: “If people have real pain they will prepay you for the solution, otherwise they will not pay even after you create it.”