Hey Reader,

It’s one of the most logical ways to start a SaaS company.

You build an internal tool for your own business. You use it, you refine it, and it works flawlessly. You've already de-risked the idea and proven it creates value, right?

Wrong. You’ve just swapped one risk for a bigger, more subtle one.

The success of an internal tool proves it solves your problem. It does not prove you have a commercially viable product.

Think of it this way: you’ve designed a bespoke suit, perfectly tailored to your exact measurements and needs. It fits you better than anything you could buy off the rack. Now, you’re trying to sell it as a one-size-fits-all jacket.

This false sense of security is dangerous. It causes you to overvalue features that an outside market simply doesn't care about, because those features were built for your specific workflows, your team, and your priorities.

An external customer won't need 100% of your features. They might only value 30% and be completely unwilling to pay for the rest.

Before you write a single line of code for the public version, your job is to relentlessly hunt for the answer to one question:

"Which 20% of this tool would an outside customer pay 100% of the price for?"

Finding that answer is the only validation that matters.

— Dmitry

P.S. If you're struggling to figure out which parts of your product the market will actually pay for, this is what I help founders do in a single session. Let's spend 30 minutes finding that core value. Book your free strategy call.