In 2019, I sold a workshop that didn’t exist yet. I had a title, a one-paragraph description, and a Stripe link. No slides. No curriculum. No venue booked. Just a promise and a price tag.
Twelve people paid. That evening, I built the workshop. Two weeks later, I delivered it. The feedback was excellent — not because I’m a genius presenter, but because those twelve paying customers had told me exactly what they needed during the buying process. Their questions, their objections, their specific situations all became the content.
If nobody had paid, I would have spent zero hours building something nobody wanted. That’s the power of pre-selling, and it still surprises me how few founders use it.
Why Pre-Selling Is the Most Honest Validation
Let me address the objection right away, because I hear it every time: “Isn’t it dishonest to sell something that doesn’t exist?”
No. It’s the opposite. Here’s why.
When you build first and sell later, you’re making a bet with your own time and money that you know what people want. You’re saying, “I’m so confident in my understanding of the market that I’ll invest months of work before confirming it.” That’s not confidence — that’s arrogance. And it usually ends with a product nobody buys and a founder wondering what went wrong.
When you pre-sell, you’re saying to potential customers: “I think I can solve this problem for you. Here’s what I plan to build. If you agree it’s worth paying for, I’ll build it. If not, I won’t waste either of our time.” That’s honest. That’s respectful of their intelligence and your resources.
The key is transparency. Don’t pretend the product exists. Make it clear this is a pre-order. Offer a money-back guarantee. Set a delivery timeline and stick to it. Done right, pre-selling builds more trust than a traditional launch because customers become partners in the creation process.
I’ve used this approach for digital products, consulting services, and even my book projects. Every time, the pre-selling phase taught me more about what to build than any amount of customer interviewing alone could have. Because when money is on the table, people tell you exactly what they expect. And those expectations become your specification.
The Pre-Sell Mechanics: Step by Step
Here’s the exact process I follow. It’s deliberately simple because complexity at this stage is just procrastination wearing a business costume.
Step 1: Write the sales page.
Not a landing page. A sales page. The difference matters. A landing page says “this is coming, give us your email.” A sales page says “this is what you get, here’s the price, buy now.”
Your sales page needs exactly five elements:
- The problem (in the customer’s own words)
- What you’re building to solve it
- What the customer gets specifically
- The price
- A buy button
That’s it. No testimonials (you don’t have any yet). No fancy design. No video. Just those five things on a page.
I use Carrd or a simple Notion page for this. Total setup time: 2-3 hours, including writing. If you’re spending more time than that, you’re over-preparing.
Step 2: Set the price.
This is where founders spiral. “What if I price too high? What if I price too low? What if nobody pays?”
Here’s the shortcut: look at what people are currently paying for the bad solution to this problem. Price your thing at 50-80% of that. You’re new, you’re unproven, and you’re asking people to trust a pre-order. A lower-than-market price removes friction without destroying your margins.
For the first version, I often use a “founding member” price — explicitly lower than what the product will eventually cost, with a clear note that it’s a pre-order price. This gives early buyers a reason to act now and gives you pricing flexibility later.
Step 3: Send it to 50 people.
Not your friends. Not your family. Fifty people who match your target customer profile.
Where do you find them? From the interviews you’ve already done. From the communities where you did conversation mining. From LinkedIn searches for people with the right job titles. From Reddit or Twitter, where people have publicly discussed the problem you’re solving.
The message is simple:
“Hey [name], I’m building [one-sentence description of product]. Based on [reason they’re relevant — their posts, your conversation, their role], I thought you might be interested. I’m offering founding member pricing at [price] for the first [number] customers. Here’s the page: [link]. Happy to answer any questions.”
Step 4: Measure.
Track three things:
- How many of the 50 opened/read the message
- How many clicked the link
- How many purchased
If 0 out of 50 purchase, the offer is wrong. Either the problem isn’t urgent enough, the price is wrong, or the positioning doesn’t match what people actually need.
If 2-5 out of 50 purchase, you have signal. Not certainty, but enough to justify building.
If 5+ out of 50 purchase, stop reading this article and go build the thing. You’ve found something.
What To Do When Nobody Buys
This happens. It happened to me with a project management tool idea I had in 2021. I sent the pre-sell to 60 people. Zero purchases. Two “looks interesting” replies. That’s it.
My first reaction was to blame the sales page. Maybe the copy was wrong. Maybe the price was too high. Maybe I targeted the wrong people. All of those were possible. But the most likely explanation was the simplest one: the product I described wasn’t something people would pay for.
Here’s my process when a pre-sell fails:
Reply to the people who didn’t buy. Send a short follow-up: “Hey, I noticed you didn’t go for the pre-order. Totally fine — but I’d love to know what held you back. Was the price wrong? The product not quite right? The problem not big enough? Any honest feedback helps.”
About 30% of people will reply to this message. And their responses are pure gold. This is where you hear things like “I already use X for this” or “the problem you described isn’t really how I experience it” or “I’d pay for this but not at that price.”
Check the price. Drop it by 50% and re-send to a new batch of 50 people. If the lower price converts, you had a pricing problem, not a product problem. If it still doesn’t convert, price wasn’t the issue.
Reframe the offer. Sometimes the product is right but the positioning is wrong. A “project management tool” gets a shrug. A “tool that automatically cancels meetings that don’t have agendas” gets attention. Same underlying product, different framing. Try three different framings with three different batches of people.
If none of these work after two rounds, the idea needs to change. Not a tweak — a pivot. And that’s not failure. That’s the validation process working exactly as designed.
The Ethics of Pre-Selling
I take this seriously, so let me be explicit about the ethical framework.
Always be transparent. The customer must know they’re pre-ordering. Use words like “pre-order,” “founding member,” “early access.” Never imply the product already exists.
Always offer a refund. If you can’t deliver on time, or the customer isn’t satisfied, refund them immediately and completely. No questions. No friction. The moment you make it hard to get a refund, you’ve crossed from validation into scamming.
Set a delivery date and hit it. If you say “available by June 1,” deliver by June 1. If you can’t, communicate early and offer refunds. Trust is built in these moments.
Don’t oversell the scope. Describe what V1 will actually include. Not the dream version. Not the “eventually this will also do…” version. The specific, limited, first version. Under-promise and over-deliver is cliché because it works.
Stop selling when you have enough. Pre-selling isn’t a revenue strategy. It’s a validation strategy. Once you have enough purchases to confirm the demand (for most products, 10-30 pre-orders is sufficient), close the pre-sale and start building.
I’ve seen founders get so excited about pre-sale revenue that they keep selling, accumulating hundreds of pre-orders for a product that doesn’t exist. Then the pressure to deliver becomes paralyzing. The speed advantage of pre-selling only works if you stay small and scrappy in the early rounds.
Pre-Selling Different Product Types
The mechanics vary slightly depending on what you’re selling.
Digital products (courses, templates, tools): Easiest to pre-sell. Create a Stripe link, describe what’s included, set a delivery date. Deliver via email or a simple download page. No inventory, no shipping, no complexity.
Services: Pre-sell a “founding client” package. Limited spots, specific scope, clear deliverables. This is basically how consulting works already — you sell the engagement before doing the work.
Physical products: Harder but doable. Kickstarter is essentially a pre-selling platform. For smaller runs, describe the product, take pre-orders through Stripe, and use the revenue to fund a small production run. Be very honest about timelines.
SaaS/software: Pre-sell annual subscriptions at a founding member rate. “Pay $X/year now, get lifetime access to V1 plus all updates.” Deliver V1 as a manual or semi-manual process while you build the automated version.
Communities/memberships: Pre-sell founding memberships. “The first 50 members get lifetime access at $X/month.” This works particularly well because community value increases with members, giving early buyers an incentive to recruit.
For any product type, the principle is the same: describe the outcome, set a price, take money, then build. The order matters. Building then selling is the traditional path. Selling then building is the validated path.
Real Numbers From Real Pre-Sells
Let me share some actual conversion data from pre-sells I’ve been involved in, because abstract advice without numbers is just philosophy.
Workshop on innovation methods (2019):
- Sent to: 80 people
- Clicks: 34 (42%)
- Purchases: 12 (15% of sends, 35% of clicks)
- Price: €149
- Revenue: €1,788
- Delivered two weeks later
Digital template kit for startup founders (2022):
- Sent to: 120 people
- Clicks: 45 (37%)
- Purchases: 8 (6.7% of sends, 18% of clicks)
- Price: €49
- Revenue: €392
- Built and delivered in one week
Coaching package (2023):
- Sent to: 40 people
- Clicks: 22 (55%)
- Purchases: 4 (10% of sends, 18% of clicks)
- Price: €500
- Revenue: €2,000
- Delivered over 4 weeks
These aren’t spectacular numbers. They’re real numbers. And in every case, the pre-sale revenue was a fraction of what the product eventually earned. The point wasn’t to maximize revenue — it was to confirm demand before investing time.
A 5-15% purchase rate from a targeted list is normal for pre-sells. If you’re below 5%, either your list isn’t targeted enough or your offer needs work. Above 15% is exceptional and usually means you’ve found a very hot problem.
Key Takeaways
- Pre-selling is the most honest form of validation. You’re asking customers to confirm demand with real money, and you’re promising to only build if demand exists.
- The mechanics are simple: sales page, price, 50 targeted messages, measure purchases. Total setup time is a few hours.
- When nobody buys, diagnose why. Follow up with non-buyers, test lower prices, reframe the offer. Two failed rounds means the idea needs a real pivot.
- Ethics matter. Be transparent about pre-ordering, always offer refunds, set and hit delivery dates, and don’t oversell scope.
- 5-15% purchase rate from a targeted list is normal. Even small numbers (5-10 pre-orders) are enough to validate demand and justify building.
