How I Use AI + No Code to Validate any SaaS Idea

Summary

This video script outlines a method to validate a SaaS idea using no code and AI tools. The process involves creating a landing page with a sign-up form to gauge interest, then running targeted ads on Facebook and Instagram to drive traffic. The script details how to use tools like Figma for UI design, Framer for page creation, and Formspark for email collection. The goal is to collect email addresses as a sign of potential user interest. The script emphasizes the importance of validation to avoid investing time and resources into an undesired product.

Takeaways

• 🚀 The script outlines a method to validate a SaaS idea without building the product, using no code and AI tools.
• 📝 The process begins with creating a landing page to showcase the SaaS idea, using free UI templates and tools like Figma and Framer.
• 💡 The landing page should give the impression that the product is nearly complete and about to launch, enticing users to sign up for early access.
• 📧 A sign-up form is crucial for capturing interested users' emails, which can be done using a tool like Formspree.
• 🎯 The script emphasizes the importance of creating 'thumb-stopping' ad creatives to attract visitors to the landing page.
• 📈 Ads are run on Facebook and Instagram to target a specific audience, with the campaign optimized for traffic rather than leads or sales.
• 💸 A small daily budget for the ads is suggested, with the campaign's duration and success criteria predefined to measure interest in the SaaS idea.
• 📊 The script suggests using AI tools like ChatGPT to generate website copy and ad creatives, streamlining the content creation process.
• 🔍 The validation process is iterative, with the possibility of tweaking the landing page, ad creatives, or targeting to improve results.
• 📊 The final step involves analyzing the number of email sign-ups as a signal of user interest, with a lower threshold indicating a need for further validation or a potential pivot.
• 💭 The script concludes by highlighting that validation is about gathering signals and indicators, not absolute proof, and that multiple tests can increase certainty.

Q & A

What is the main focus of the video script?

The main focus of the video script is to demonstrate a method for validating a SaaS (Software as a Service) idea using no code and AI tools in three simple steps.

Why is it important to validate a SaaS idea before building it?

Validating a SaaS idea is crucial to determine if there is actual user interest and demand for the product, which helps avoid investing significant time and resources into developing something that may not be desired by the market.

What are the three steps outlined in the script for validating a SaaS idea?

The three steps are: 1) Creating a landing page with a sign-up form, 2) Creating thumb-stopping ad creatives, and 3) Running ads on platforms like Facebook to drive traffic and collect email sign-ups as a measure of interest.

What is the purpose of creating a landing page for the SaaS idea?

The purpose of creating a landing page is to showcase the tool, generate interest, and collect email addresses from potential users who are eager to learn more or sign up for early access.

Why use AI tools like ChatGPT for creating website copy?

AI tools like ChatGPT are used to generate compelling and effective website copy quickly, ensuring the messaging accurately conveys the value proposition of the SaaS tool to potential users.

What is the significance of collecting email sign-ups during the validation process?

Collecting email sign-ups serves as an indicator of user interest and potential market demand for the SaaS idea. It provides a tangible measure of how many people are willing to engage with the product.

How does running ads on Facebook and Instagram help in the validation process?

Running ads on Facebook and Instagram helps in reaching a wide audience and driving targeted traffic to the landing page, which is essential for collecting sign-ups and validating the SaaS idea.

What is the role of Formspark in the validation process described in the script?

Formspark is used to create and manage the sign-up form on the landing page, allowing for the collection of emails from interested users without requiring any coding.

What are the criteria for considering the SaaS idea validation successful?

The criteria for success include achieving a certain number of sign-ups (e.g., 20-30 emails) within a set timeframe (e.g., after a week of running ads), and meeting a predetermined sign-up rate (e.g., 3-5% of page views).

Why is it suggested to run multiple ad campaigns with different targeting and creatives?

Running multiple ad campaigns with different targeting and creatives helps to gather more diverse data and insights, increasing the reliability of the validation process by testing the idea's appeal across various audience segments.

What does the script suggest about the certainty of a SaaS idea's success after validation?

The script emphasizes that validation provides signals and indicators but does not guarantee success. It's a method to reduce risk and make more informed decisions, rather than a definitive proof of a business's viability.

Outlines

00:00

🚀 Validating a SAS Idea with No-Code and AI

The paragraph introduces the challenge of validating a SAS (Software as a Service) idea and emphasizes the importance of ensuring user interest before development. It outlines a three-step process to validate a SAS idea using no-code and AI tools. The example of an interactive prompt designer for AI tools is used to demonstrate the validation process. The first step is creating a landing page with a sign-up form using free UI templates from Figma and Framer to showcase the tool's concept. The goal is to generate interest and collect email addresses as a measure of potential user engagement.

05:00

🎯 Running Ads to Drive Traffic and Validate Interest

This section delves into the second step of the validation process: creating compelling ad creatives to attract visitors to the landing page. The use of Tiny Kiwi for designing ads in various formats for Facebook and Instagram is highlighted. The ads are intended to drive traffic to the landing page, with the ultimate goal of collecting email addresses from interested users. The paragraph also covers setting up a Facebook ad campaign through Facebook's Ad Manager, with a focus on optimizing for traffic and targeting specific interests to reach the right audience. The experiment's success criteria are discussed, such as the desired sign-up rate and the duration of the campaign.

10:00

🔍 Analyzing Results and Decision Making

The final paragraph discusses the outcome of the ad campaign and the decision-making process based on the results. With 11 email sign-ups after a week, the validation is considered less successful, suggesting that the idea might not be as appealing as initially thought. The paragraph emphasizes the importance of iterative testing and learning from each experiment. It also touches on the subjective nature of validation results and the need for multiple experiments to gather more conclusive indicators. The speaker concludes by reflecting on the value of spending a small amount of time and money on validation versus a large investment in developing an undesired product.

Keywords

💡SaaS

SaaS stands for Software as a Service, a software licensing and delivery model in which software is accessed over the Internet rather than installed locally. In the context of the video, the creator is discussing the validation of a SaaS idea, which is a service that could be used for tools like chatbots and AI platforms, indicating a focus on cloud-based, subscription-oriented software solutions.

💡Validation

Validation in the video refers to the process of confirming the viability and market interest in a SaaS idea before investing significant time and resources into its development. The video emphasizes the importance of validating an idea to avoid building a product that lacks customer interest, showcasing a method to gauge potential user engagement through sign-ups and ad responses.

💡Landing Page

A landing page is a standalone web page, designed to welcome visitors and persuade them to take a specific action, such as signing up for a service. In the script, the creator discusses creating a landing page to showcase the SaaS tool, using UI templates to design it and then building it in Framer, which is crucial for capturing user interest and collecting email addresses for potential users.

💡UI Templates

UI templates are pre-designed user interface layouts that can be used as a starting point for creating the look and feel of a website or application. The video mentions searching for free UI templates in Figma, a design tool, to create a mockup of the SaaS tool's interface, which helps in visualizing the product and attracting potential users during the validation process.

💡Framer

Framer is a design and prototyping tool used for creating interactive and animated user interfaces. In the video, Framer is used to build a simple landing page for the SaaS idea, demonstrating the tool's capabilities and allowing potential users to sign up, which is a practical application of Framer in the validation process.

💡Formspark

Formspark is a tool for creating forms and collecting data, which is used in the video to build a sign-up form for the SaaS idea. It's mentioned as a free tool for the first 250 submissions, making it a cost-effective choice for collecting emails from interested users during the validation phase.

💡Ad Creatives

Ad creatives refer to the visual and textual content used in advertising campaigns. The video discusses creating thumb-stopping ad creatives for Facebook and Instagram to attract visitors to the landing page. These ad creatives are crucial for driving traffic and are tailored to various ad formats to maximize engagement.

💡Facebook Ad Manager

Facebook Ad Manager is a platform used for creating, managing, and tracking advertising campaigns on Facebook. In the script, the creator sets up a campaign in Ad Manager to drive traffic to the landing page, choosing objectives, targeting, and ad formats to optimize for the best results during the validation process.

💡Chat TPT

Chat TPT, presumably a reference to a chat-based AI tool, is used in the video to generate website copy and ad text. This AI tool assists in creating persuasive and engaging content, which is essential for effectively communicating the value of the SaaS idea to potential users and encouraging them to sign up.

💡Experiment

In the context of the video, an experiment refers to the series of steps taken to validate the SaaS idea, including creating a landing page, running ads, and collecting sign-ups. The experiment is designed to gather data and feedback to determine if the idea is worth pursuing, highlighting a methodical approach to idea validation.

Highlights

The importance of validating a SaaS idea before building it.

The common mistake of skipping validation among first-time founders.

The concept of using AI and no-code tools to validate a SaaS idea.

The three simple steps to validate a SaaS idea using no-code and AI.

Creating a landing page with a sign-up form as the first step.

Using free UI templates for Figma to design the landing page.

The idea of showcasing a tool as almost complete to generate interest.

Using Framer to build a simple landing page for the tool.

Writing website copy with the help of AI to describe the tool's features.

The strategy of offering early access at a discounted rate to attract sign-ups.

Using Formspark to collect emails for the sign-up form.

Creating thumb-stopping ad creatives to attract visitors to the website.

Running ads on Facebook and Instagram to drive traffic to the landing page.

Setting up a Facebook Ad Manager campaign optimized for traffic.

The significance of deciding winning criteria before starting the experiment.

The outcome of the experiment with only 11 sign-ups after a week.

The insight that validation is about gathering signals, not proving an idea.

The importance of running multiple experiments to increase certainty.

The preference for spending a few hours and dollars on validation over months and thousands on building.

Transcripts

let's see how easy it is to validate a

SAS idea so here's the here's the

problem you already got a great idea for

a SAS you know it's definitely something

you would use yourself and you already

have a pretty good idea about how you

would build it you're excited and you

want to get started but then you

remember something

that's where most first-time Founders go

wrong either they skip this part

entirely and just start building or they

get discouraged because what the hell

does validate even mean and I get it

it's confusing and it highly depends on

your specific case but bottom line is we

want to see if users are actually

interested in this SAS we're gonna build

and this is 223 so we have some

extremely Cool Tools at our disposal in

this video I'll show you how to validate

your SAS idea in three simple steps

using no code and AI let's get started a

few months ago I published a video with

seven AI SAS ideas and one of them was

the idea of an interactive prompt

designer for tools like chat tpg and

gpt3 let's test if this idea is worth

building step one creating a landing

page with a sign up form here's the idea

we're going to create a landing page to

showcase the tool it should look like

we're almost done building it and that

it's about to go live soon so let's

search for some free UI templates for

figma doesn't need to be too accurate

just something for us to get started

with

perfect

now let's alter this and make a UI that

looks like a prompt Builder

something with drag and drop and some

different prompt Vlogs that we can piece

together

let's add a logo and a name for the tool

as well

and you can go into as much detail here

as you want I suggest keeping it simple

we're not building the UI for the actual

product here we just need something to

illustrate the idea awesome now let's go

to framer and build a simple landing

page for this tool we want to use the UI

mockup we just created for the hero

section

yeah

[Music]

ah perfect this looks great now we need

some copy let's fire up chat TPT and jam

a bit on some good website copy

there we go

we want to make sure the visitor gets a

good idea about what this tool can do

awesome

this looks super cool

we're also going to add a navigation

menu and we're going to have two items

saying sign up and pricing

both will lead to the same page

so here's the idea when the user

navigates to this page they'll be

presented with this message we're gonna

tell them that this tool is launching

soon that they had the chance to join

early at a discounted offer and I know

what you're thinking how does them

putting their email here countless

validation well there are no guarantees

but you would be surprised how difficult

it actually is to get people to sign up

for something like this if we can get

people to put their emails here it's

definitely a sign that there's some

interest in our idea but how do we even

get these people on the website hold on

we'll get back to that in a moment first

let's build our sign up form we're going

to use a tool called formspark to

collect the emails it's free for the

first 250 submissions and everything

considered if we can get 250 people to

sign up as a part of this experiment I'd

say we're tracking pretty well this is

not a lead magnet we're just checking if

there's some interest building a form

with formspark is super easy to do in

framer

thank you

we just need to add the form ID here

there we go

okay now that we have a solid marketing

website rated for a SAS let's go on to

step two

creating some thumb stopping ad

creatives that's right in order to get

visitors to our website we're gonna run

ads on Facebook for about a week maybe

10 days again this is not about

launching and scaling a long-term ad

campaign so if you're new to this don't

worry too much about all the specifics

here we're gonna keep it super simple

let's head over to Tiny kiwi and put

some ad creatives together we need three

formats the first one is a Facebook ad

[Music]

let's take the image from figma and put

together a nice looking creative

awesome

then let's take this and adjust it to

the format of Instagram ad

[Music]

and finally we'll make one for the

Instagram story format

there we go with these three formats we

can use the most common placements on

both Facebook and Instagram these two

platforms together are huge if you think

your target audience isn't on Facebook

think again you can find literally any

group of people on these platforms and

we only need a small group for this

experiment let's head over to Facebook's

ad manager if you don't have an account

already you'll need to set one up

Facebook's ad manager can seem a little

confusing at first there are a bunch of

different campaign objectives we can

choose from and in most cases we want to

go for leads or sales but because this

is a rather time limited campaign we'll

simply optimize for traffic

let's give this campaign a name and

start configuring the ad set

optimize for landing page views

we'll set the daily budget to around 10

to 12 dollars

under audience will pick a country I

suggest simply picking United States

there are more than enough people here

to Target under detailed targeting we

can narrow a few interests

[Music]

for these we'll put artificial

intelligence and then hit suggestions to

get a few more let's add technology and

smart technology as well

awesome and based on this we can get up

to 200 Page visits per day finally let's

set up the actual ad you'll need a

Facebook page and an Instagram account

this will be the account that the ads

are shown under you can create a new

page specifically for this experiment so

the page name matches the website

content or if you have a company name

already you can use that as well for

this experiment I'm simply going to use

my personal page awesome let's upload

the images from before

[Music]

and as you can see we need to fit these

three formats here so let's replace

these to match the other images we

created

there we go

looks awesome

and we need some copy for the ads let's

get back to chat TPT

[Music]

nice let's adjust this slightly

there we go

and if we open this we can see how these

ads will look across a bunch of

different platforms and devices

[Music]

let's add the website hit publish now

we're gonna wait a few hours for

Facebook to approve these ads and

they'll start running and this is

basically it before you start an

experiment like this it's a great idea

to decide some winning criteria in

advance how many signups do you need in

order to consider this idea validated

and how long are you willing to let the

campaign run for example let's say that

we're able to get a hundred page views

on average per day and we're letting

this campaign run for a week that's 700

page views I would like to see a three

to five percent sign up rate so we would

need some 20 30 emails after finishing

this experiment if we get more than 50

it's definitely an idea worth looking

into if we get less than 10 there's

probably something holding people back

and that could be an indication that

this idea just isn't that interesting

but remember there are a lot of factors

at play here so other things can

obviously influence performance I've

used this technique a number of times

and most often I run two to three

campaigns using different targeting and

AD creatives just to cover a few more

angles all right right I'm gonna let

this run for a week let's see how this

experiment turns out

all right here we are our ad campaign

has been running for one week it's time

to see how many email signups we got if

you're still watching please pause the

video here go to the comments and drop

your guess how many sign ups do you

think we got

let's take a look

and we got 11 sign ups

well it's a good thing I didn't get

ahead of myself and started building

this thing while I was waiting 11 emails

is definitely on the lower end of what I

would consider a successful validation

but again if I wanted to be extra sure I

would probably try tweaking the landing

page to add creatives and the targeting

a bit and run a few more rounds just to

see in this case though yeah I think the

world might not be ready for this kind

of AI prompt designer right now so um

I'm gonna go on and do something else

but this whole thing took me a few hours

to set up and I would much rather spend

a few hours and a hundred dollars

testing an idea than four months and

thousands of dollars building something

no one wants and that's exactly why we

care about validating an idea it's

important to point out that we cannot

ever be certain of anything there are no

guarantees just because I only got 11

sign ups on this round doesn't

necessarily mean that the idea is

completely useless and if I had gotten

300 signups on this round it's still no

guarantee that this would ever work as a

SAS business so validating a SAS idea

like this is about signals and

indicators it's not about trying to

prove anything and of course the more

tests the more experiment We Run The

more indicators we can collect and it

helps us become a little bit more

certain every time if you saw this ad on

Facebook while it was running I'm very

curious to hear your thoughts did you

sign up and if not why didn't you please

if you saw this comment below I would

love to hear your thoughts also check

out this video where I cover five micro

SAS ideas that you can build in 2023 and

perhaps consider running this experiment

on one of them if you got value from

this video please please give it a like

And subscribe to my channel for more

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