Audience-First Business Model
Build an audience before building a product. By consistently creating valuable content for a specific niche, you develop trust...
3-6 months to build audience, then ongoing
Charm Pricing and Price Anchoring
Psychological pricing strategies backed by decades of research. Charm pricing (ending in 9 or 7) exploits left-digit bias. Price...
1-2 days to implement, ongoing optimization
Customer Development Interviews
Steve Blank's methodology for getting out of the building and talking to real customers before writing code. Structured...
45 minutes per interview, 2-3 weeks for a full round
Info Product Stacking (Digital Product Ladder)
Create a ladder of digital products at increasing price points: free lead magnet, low-ticket ebook or mini-course, mid-ticket...
2-4 weeks per product tier
Lean Validation (Build-Measure-Learn)
Eric Ries's core loop from The Lean Startup. Build the smallest possible version of your idea, measure real customer behavior...
2-4 weeks per validation cycle
Pre-Selling (Sell Before You Build)
Collect real payment or binding commitments from customers before building the product. Eliminates the #1 startup risk — building...
1-2 weeks to create materials and sell, then build time
Productized Service Model
Take a custom service and turn it into a fixed-scope, fixed-price offering that can be delivered repeatedly. Eliminates the...
2-4 weeks to package, then ongoing delivery
Smoke Test Landing Page
Create a landing page describing a product that doesn't exist yet and measure real demand through signups or pre-orders. If...
1 day to build, 1 week to run ads
Stair Step Method of Bootstrapping
Rob Walling's 3-step framework for building up to a SaaS business without venture capital. Start with simple one-time purchase...
6-18 months per step
The Mom Test (Problem Interview Framework)
Rob Fitzpatrick's framework for having customer conversations that actually produce useful information. Named because even your...
30 minutes per conversation, 10-20 conversations total