How and when to acquire SaaS users
> Distribution before product<p>I don't like this new startup trend[1][2], nor do I think it actually works.<p>Literally all of those examples are the opposite of what the blog post is claiming. They <i>did</i> have a product: Hotmail had the service built out, Eventbrite had the service built out, and there was a Dropbox before you could refer your friends to it. There are examples of what the author is claiming, but most are gimmicky Kickstarter-style (and often derivative) products.<p>I mean, think about Dropbox or Slack or Instagram: how could you possibly sell (or even validate the idea of) those products without actually giving some sort of demo? Without people actually <i>using</i> that thing? It might work for something like the product in the post (people understand what "video chat" is), but I don't really see it working for any kind of particularly novel or value-generating product.<p>Followup: grabbed a coffee, and this post got a bit of attention. To be clear, I think that an MVP should be just that: a <i>minimum</i> viable product. By <i>definition</i>, you shouldn't be able to go leaner. I also think that sometimes people conflate "fake it 'til you make it" with PG's "do things that don't scale" -- these two are <i>not</i> the same.<p>[1] <a href="https://tommorkes.com/lean-launch-how-to-sell-an-idea-before-you-build-it/" rel="nofollow">https://tommorkes.com/lean-launch-how-to-sell-an-idea-before...</a><p>[2] <a href="https://hbr.org/2013/12/sell-your-product-before-it-exists" rel="nofollow">https://hbr.org/2013/12/sell-your-product-before-it-exists</a>