MVP Sales Strategies How Founders Can Sell Before They Build

At Digital Wasabi, we’ve worked with dozens of early-stage SaaS founders—and if there’s one recurring mistake we see time and time again, it’s this: building a product before selling it.

Back in 2023, our founder, Christian Godoy Jørgensen, joined the Founders Korner podcast to share lessons from his journey building Bettermetrics, and why pre-selling is one of the most powerful strategies a founder can adopt. This blog post distills key takeaways from that conversation—along with updated insights we now apply in our work with startup teams across the globe.

Don’t Build Yet. Sell First.

If you haven’t validated the problem, you’re not ready to build. Christian calls this phase a “pain hunt”—a process of discovering where your target market is already struggling.

That means:

Digging into 2-, 3-, and 4-star reviews on sites like G2 or Capterra
Trawling Reddit, Slack groups, and LinkedIn conversations
Listening for repeated frustrations, not just feature requests

Once that pain is clear, it’s time to create a lightweight prototype—a Figma mockup, a clickable deck, or even a no-code landing page. Then, start having conversations. Show people the idea and ask the hard question: Would you pay for this today?

The goal isn’t to close deals immediately—it’s to uncover real objections and test if the pain is deep enough to justify the solution.

Why Outbound > Inbound at the MVP Stage

Inbound tactics like content, ads, and SEO are tempting. But in the early stages, they don’t give you the real-time feedback you need.

At Bettermetrics, Christian initially leaned on inbound marketing—driving traffic to a trial signup flow. The result? Hundreds of users… and almost zero conversions. It wasn’t until he began outbound outreach—cold calls and LinkedIn messages—that the real obstacle emerged: users didn’t feel comfortable connecting their sensitive marketing data to an unknown platform.

Without those conversations, that objection would’ve stayed invisible. That’s why we always encourage early founders to start with outbound—it forces clarity, fast.

Every “No” Is a Strategic Insight

One of the most powerful outcomes of early sales conversations isn’t revenue—it’s clarity.

When prospects say:

“I’m not sure I trust this yet”
“I already have a workaround”
“I’d consider it if it did X”

…they’re not rejecting you—they’re giving you free product research. But only if you’re close enough to hear it.

That’s why pre-selling is more than a validation step—it’s a feedback loop that shapes messaging, positioning, onboarding, and feature prioritization.

And while it’s tempting to chase every feature request, Christian’s advice is clear: build for the 80%, not the 1% with custom demands.

Why Pricing Can Wait—But Not Feedback

We hear this question constantly: “How should I price my product?”

Our answer: It doesn’t matter if no one’s using it. Focus on getting people to experience value first. Once usage is consistent, pricing becomes a lever—not a guess.

Still, there are smart ways to gauge pricing boundaries early on. One approach Christian uses in pre-sales calls:

“What price would make this a total no-brainer?”
“At what point would this feel too expensive to even consider?”

The space between those answers gives you a realistic pricing range to work from—and makes early conversations far more productive.

The Founder’s Job Is to Sell

Whether you’re recruiting a co-founder, pitching investors, onboarding early hires, or acquiring your first customers—you’re selling.

Sales is how you test your offer. Sales is how you fund your first hires. Sales is how you prove traction. And if you truly believe your product solves a painful problem, not selling it is doing your customers a disservice.

At Digital Wasabi, we help founders lean into that role—equipping them with the tools and strategies to confidently take their ideas to market before they ever write a line of code.