Uncovering Real-World Problems Through Warm Leads Everyone Has

My journey to building a SaaS product starts not with an idea, but with an open mind. The people around me are my greatest asset, so I’ll start by listening to them, teasing out their problems and keeping my eyes peeled for opportunities.

Why not jump straight into building?

I’m not exactly stuck for ideas. I’ve got a Notion board of (currently) 17 SaaS ideas that I’ve been building up over the last month or so.

I could go through these, pick my favourite, and build an MVP (a Minimum Viable Product). I could deal with the talking to people, the marketing and everything later.

But I don’t really know what I’m doing. I don’t know if people actually want the solution that my MVP would solve. I would have to weave a target market around my product, rather than weaving my product around a target market.

I’m here to build something that will be used, not waste months of my time making a portfolio-filler.

I need to find problems first, and build solutions later.

Power in numbers

As an introvert, it’s a struggle to say it, but other people are my biggest asset. Other people lead very different lives to myself, have different ideas, opinions, ways of thinking, and, most importantly, different problems.

Most people have heard of the concept of the six degrees of separation — you’re never more than 6 connections away from any other person in the world. I think this is a powerful thing to bear in mind as you talk to people, as it makes you think about who they could know.

Everybody knows interesting people, and those people know even more interesting people, so the goal should be to get as far away from your circle as possible. Every time you connect with someone outside of it, your opportunities increase exponentially.

All this is to say, that even someone you think of as uninteresting can have potential in helping with your goal. A meaningful conversation with them can lead to much more than you would expect.

Nobody gives up information and contacts out of the blue, but it’s there, ripe for the taking. All you need to do is talk to people, and ask the right questions.

What is a warm lead?

Put simply, a warm lead is someone you have an existing relationship with. In the traditional sales sense, they’re also people who have expressed some interest in your offering, but for the sake of this we’ll assume the ‘interest in your offering’ is just some willingness to help you out.

I recommend starting a list of warm leads as soon as possible. You want to put pretty much everyone you know on this list. Parents, extended family, good friends, old friends, people you met in the pub. Generally, the more different each person is to another, the better — so go wild.

I added everyone I could think of to my list, along with a couple of bullet points about them, and the best way I can contact them.

Occasionally a name will come up in my head — an old friend from school, or someone I met randomly on holiday — and I’ll add it to the list. And as soon as I meet someone new, it goes straight on the list.

Why? So that I have somewhere to start, and somewhere to carry on.

I’m pretty set on creating a SaaS for B2B, so I’ve started by reaching out to some old business contacts. If I had no clear goal, I could’ve started with my mom, a friend, or a neighbour.

Down the line, let’s say I come up with an idea that could have strong potential in the logistics industry. I don’t know much about the logistics industry. But I can go back through my list of warm leads, pinpoint a few people who are in the industry or probably know it better than I, have a chat and see where it goes.

That’s why you should not just add people close to you to this list. If you’ve ever had a chat with your postman — add him!

Getting myself warmed up with a light read

I’ve been reading a great book recently: The Mom Test by Rob Fitzpatrick.

It’s a nice short read, and I highly recommend giving it a go so that when you meet with people, you’re asking the right questions. Questions that make sure you’re not putting words in people’s mouths, but are unravelling their personal situation and worldview and uncovering real world problems.

When you go in with a genuine desire not just to get something out of a conversation for your own personal gain, but to help the other person, it will be so much more rewarding for both sides.