I built the MVP. Now I have no idea how to market it….
For those of you who’ve been following along — first off, thank you. I’ve been building Probado, a platform that helps early-stage founders get structured, paid feedback on their MVPs from vetted testers. It’s affordable, customizable, and enhanced with AI that helps summarize insights and recommend improvements.
We’ve got now 100+ vetted testers onboarded, and the MVP is just about done.
But now I’m facing the part that honestly feels the hardest so far: marketing.
I’ve been trying to figure out where to start — and I still haven’t cracked it. We posted jobs for freelance marketers on Upwork, and I’ve been speaking to people on platforms like GrowthMentor, but I’m realizing I’m not even sure what kind of marketing help I need… or what I should be paying for it.
Some people quote $15/hr, others $150/hr. Should I be looking for a growth generalist? A content person? Paid ads? Partnerships? I’m building this alone and trying to avoid burning money just to learn obvious lessons the hard way.
So if you’ve grown a SaaS product from zero — or even just figured out the first few traction channels — I’d seriously appreciate any advice.
For those of you who’ve done this before:
• What’s the first kind of marketing help I should invest in?
• What’s reasonable to pay at this stage for someone who gets results?
• What actually worked for you in those earliest “pre-scale” weeks?
Appreciate any guidance — especially from those who remember how weird and unclear this part of the process can be.
— Baltazar
Replies
Upp.Vote
Finding early customers isn't hard. You don't need anyone to do it for you. Follow this simple step-by-step process:
Dig into your personal network and find out who are the potential buyers. Either meet them in person or schedule a call. Since they know you - it's easy to do the demos. Be upfront about the pricing and carefully note their questions and feedback. If they buy - great. If they don't - you've the feedback.
Find out if the feedback is useful. If yes - improve your product a bit. Don't add features. People don't buy features. They buy the tools that solve a problem. NEVER build a new feature for your MVP thinking that it will give you customers. Build features only when people swipe their card.
Then look for strangers who are likely to buy your product. Where can you find them? Reddit, ProductHunt, LinkedIn - everywhere. Every day, send a cold email to about 10 people. Write each email without AI and make it very personalised. Do it for about 30-45 days consistently. Aim to get 5-10 responses and 2-3 demo calls.
That's all you need to do.
@kaustubhkatdare I faced a similar issue to Baltazar. And I'm developing a strategy, which is similar to this one.
As you said, 30-45 days of consistently sending emails.
I agree with you, it is necessary to prepare the ground for your SAAS
Hey, has anyone already used your service to test their MVP? If so, would you consider sharing their success stories where your platform played a role? They’d likely share it organically as well to showcase their results – it could be a great part of your word-of-mouth strategy.
If you want to get companies to test their MVPs, try to also DM them. If anything else comes to my mind, I will write it here :)
@baltazar_torres Also, let them know and I think if you kindly ask them, they will repost it :)
Hey Baltazar. First off, congratulations on the launch of Probado. We run a newsletter for builders like yourself and we'd love to feature your product! It's 100% free. Would love to get you some feedback and initial users!
@baltazar_torres Hey baltazar, love the enthusiasm :') Mind filling this form? we'll feature you in our next issue!
How many users/founders you got to test their web/app ?
For example we got 52 users in first 7 days of launch as we simply asked folks to try it on Reddit who were facing same problem.
How about start slow ? with 10-20 founders testing their websites ? Reach out on targeted sub reddit :)
By the way I recently observed someone built exactly what you've built, don't remember name, just fyi. I mean exactly.
@himanshi_sharma20 How do you get people on Reddit to try things? Everyway I attempt to say things, they think its spam or no one replies.
@rohulp only provide your product's link when it make sense in the conversation. When it should feel like it's useful. And try to provide value before you ask others to try your product. That's why I'm hesitant to use Reddit marketing automation products, that may just attach links based on post and could become spam. But I know I'll need to try some automated tools anyways to avoid manual work.