[kpapke]

I have a question about the lesson here "don't write code without having committed customers first." Does this apply to a startup that is not a SaaS product? I am working on an app that has the chicken/egg problem where it can't make money straight away, it needs a strong user base to be effective.

I have been working on this app for the past year it seems like, with development really amping up in the last 6 months. We just brought on another developer to help us finish up and get it out the door. I submitted my market information and business proposal to a university marketing research class, and they gathered data from a 50 person survey for us, which validated our ideas & assumptions. When we do launch it will be a quiet soft launch with friends & family trying it out first. Then we will tweak it with their feedback before we really try to make it public and do serious marketing efforts.

All of that said, our monetization strategy won't be implemented until post-launch once we have this feedback from actual users and a good amount of them sticking around. The whole thing is bootstrapped and we haven't spent anything, aside from the weekend development hours. Does this seem like the right approach for launching our product?

[wikwocket]

It sounds like you have some validation, which is a huge step in the right direction, but more is always better. One reason is that, if you ask someone if they would like to use/have product XYZ, you will get very different answers and feedback than if you ask, "Would you like to pay $NNN for Product XYZ right now?"

Depending on your product, I might recommend starting to build an audience of people interested in your product. Try to interact with them as soon as possible. Get them interested. Then when you launch, you have a stable of warm leads, champing at the bit to go.