Founder Playbook · Starter Story
7 tactics from Joseph & Teimo
How We Built a $10K/mo SaaS
Watch the full episode“I created a completely fake demo for this product because the product wasn't there yet and put it on this landing page. I think it's the most low-effort way to validate the idea because I wanted to find out if people would actually pay for this.”
Fake demo landing page validates buyer intent before writing any code
Joseph built a minimal landing page under an existing warm domain before writing a single line of code. He used an AI-generated fake demo from ElevenLabs and a Calendly link as the only call to action, letting organic search traffic drive real buyer conversations.
“Don't say 'Please pay for my non-existing solution.' The better way is deliver as much value as you can and give them a 100% refundable deposit offer — say $500. The buyer gets full access to your product once it launches.”
Refundable deposit framework collects real payment before product exists
Teemo outlines a four-step deposit framework as step four of their validation playbook. Rather than asking for a subscription to something that doesn't exist, framing payment as a refundable deposit lowers buyer resistance while still confirming real intent. They collected $500 before their first line of code was written.
“Set up a landing page under a warm domain — a domain from a different business that you've already owned and that has been indexed with Google. Once a page is created, go to Google Search Console and request the indexing of that page. That way you make sure this page is literally indexed within 24 hours.”
Warm domain plus Search Console request indexes validation page in 24 hours
A key unlock in their validation approach was avoiding brand-new domains, which can take months to rank. By hosting the fake landing page on an aged domain and manually requesting indexing in Search Console, Joseph had real buyer traffic within a day. A billion-dollar-revenue company booked a call within weeks.
“I went to Ahrefs, found this keyword, saw it has search volume but no difficulty, so I put this as the H1 — this is the main keyword that Google will index. Once we launched our actual website for Setter, within a week we ranked on page one on Google and now ranked number one worldwide for this keyword.”
Zero-difficulty keyword as the sole H1 delivers page-one ranking in a week
Rather than targeting competitive terms, Joseph searched Ahrefs for keywords with real search volume but negligible SEO difficulty and made that phrase his landing page's sole H1. The minimal-copy page ranked on page one within a week of the real product launch.
“We focused more on the higher-paying businesses because we saw lower churn with these. Our paying customer number is only 38, but these are high-value businesses.”
38 high-ticket customers at 90% margin beats chasing thousands of free signups
With 2,000 total signups, Setter AI deliberately narrowed to 38 paying customers ranging from $50 to $5,000 per month. Concentrating on high-ticket buyers reduced churn and kept operations manageable at 90%+ margins.
“Charge early on — don't be afraid to charge because charging creates urgency and commitment, not only from you but also your customer. Go high ticket; it makes your life easier. Sell to rich people, they pay better.”
Charge early and go high-ticket to self-select serious committed buyers
The founders' closing advice distills their entire pricing philosophy: low price points attract uncommitted users who churn, while high-ticket prices self-select customers with real budget and genuine pain. The act of charging also forces the founder to ship.
“Most of the customers we closed came through watching at least one YouTube video before jumping on a call. YouTube and watching long-format content by nature has this high intent from the watcher but also creates insane trust into your business. It's the second biggest search engine after Google.”
YouTube long-form videos build trust that converts prospects before sales calls
After validating with SEO, the team doubled down on inbound by adding long-form YouTube videos to their content mix. Unlike blog posts, video built trust before a sales call even started, shortening the close cycle. Their 600-subscriber channel punched well above its weight in revenue contribution.