Starting to sell your SaaS (and why the problem is almost never just sales)

Selling is what we want most when we build a SaaS. It's the moment the software venture stops being an expensive hobby and real money starts coming in.

The problem is that we label almost everything that doesn't close as a "sales problem." I've done it many times. The software is live, the site exists, the price is written down, and nobody pays. The automatic conclusion is: I don't know how to sell. Sometimes that's even true. Most of the time, it isn't.

The mistake we call sales (and isn't)

During the build, a classic mistake, and one I've made more than once, is leaving the conversation with the customer for the very end. Or never having it.

You build what you think they need. You drift away from what they actually need. When the sale doesn't happen, you blame the funnel, the copy, the ad. The wrong diagnosis delays the fix: you optimize the pitch for a product that still doesn't solve the problem of the audience you imagined.

It's not that the software "doesn't sell." It's that the concept was left loose. A product problem disguised as a commercial one. If you talked to potential customers during the build, you already collected the raw material to formalize the sale. If you didn't, you can still recover, but first you need four concepts I use to organize my head before I "go out and sell."

Product is not offer

Product is what you built: the software you rent or sell. Offer is how you package it so someone buys.

It sounds like a semantic detail. It isn't. At DevPleno we once signed up for a tool where the product was the same for everyone, but the offer changed for people coming from a competitor. Migration came free with the plan. Same software. Different packaging. The company knew where switching hurt and put that in the package.

When we mix the two up, we try to "improve the product" when what's failing is the way we sell it: price, term, onboarding, migration, guarantee, monthly versus daily format. Sometimes the product works. It's the offer that's off relative to the size of the problem.

Who it's for, and who it isn't for

As you talk to customers, it becomes clear who the software serves and who it doesn't. Writing that down matters. It defines features. It defines what you refuse to build. And, above all, it defines the sales conversation.

"My product is for everyone" is the most expensive shortcut at the start. The more specific, the more effective. If you aim at everyone in the beginning, in practice you close with no one: the message gets diluted, the channel misses, the price doesn't clearly fit anyone's budget.

Knowing who isn't a customer also saves energy. You stop chasing leads who were never going to pay and stop adding features to please people who were never going to be your ICP.

Five levels of awareness (and the pitch on the wrong floor)

Eugene Schwartz described five levels of customer awareness. In short: unaware of the problem; aware of the problem; aware of the solution; aware of the product; and, at the top, convinced that your product is the answer.

The common mistake is assuming everyone has already reached the top. We send price, feature list and CTA to someone who still thinks it's normal to handle customers on WhatsApp in the same messy way as always. How do you sell a WhatsApp bot to someone who has never named the problem?

A SaaS's communication has to help the person climb those steps: video, blog, call, email. Depending on the level, what you say first changes. You can ask on the call where the person is and adjust on the spot. Organizing it this way avoids the useless move: offering the product to someone who doesn't know they have the problem yet.

A channel isn't "having a site live"

The fourth concept is channel: the path your message takes to reach the potential customer.

A lot of people think the internet means putting a site up and waiting. A channel can be a blog, social media, a local niche event, a partnership, a live stream, a phone call. I'm planning an in-person event for the audience of one of my SaaS products myself. A live presentation is a channel, not "generic marketing."

A channel only works when it's tied to the other three: who it's for and who it isn't, offer versus product, and awareness level. Without that, you post in the wrong place with the wrong message for the wrong audience.

We think we have a sales problem when, in fact, we have a problem of concept, of offer or of customer awareness. Selling SaaS starts before the pitch.

If you already built without talking to anyone: the practical fix

Show the software to the people you thought were the customer. Networking, friends, bars, restaurants, shops, whatever the imagined niche is. Set up conversations. Test the questions from the four concepts: was it for them? Does it solve a real problem? What's their awareness level? Is the offer consistent with the size of the problem?

Sometimes the product works and the offer is too expensive, too cheap or in a format that's odd for the market (charging per day in a market that thinks in monthly fees, for example). Sometimes it isn't for that person, but it is for an adjacent type of business. Then you adjust the target and repeat.

Talk to whoever makes the decision. A secretary can help along the way; the person who signs off on the payment is another story. And remember the blunt filter: serious software either increases profit or reduces cost. The rest tends to be a distraction in the sales story.

If after several rounds nothing converges, not awareness, not fit, not offer, maybe that product, in that form, really doesn't sell. That's why I insist on near-zero cost and contained scope: if you get it wrong, you didn't wreck your cash or two years of your life. Leave the offer up; sometimes it sells later. Learn. Build again, talking to people from day one. Don't be so in love with the product that you refuse the market's verdict.

The white elephant that became a piece that sells

We once built a huge platform, almost two years of work. We used to joke that it was a white elephant: too much stuff, hard to sell, expensive, complex. The niche was corporate education. We'd present it, present it again, and the feedback kept hitting the same note: too big.

In one of those conversations someone suggested: what if you used this part here for early childhood education? We went to talk to the right person. We found out that a tiny piece, something like 5% of the original monster, solved a real problem for preschools. We rebuilt only that module. We pivoted. That product went on to bring in close to R$ 17 thousand a month.

The software "that didn't sell" wasn't total garbage. It was the wrong size and the wrong market. Without the mistake and without the conversations, we wouldn't have found the right piece. When something doesn't get traction, this is the possible upside: you may be carrying the seed of the pivot, as long as you're willing to let go of the elephant.

In short

Selling SaaS almost never starts at the checkout button. It starts with customer conversations, clarity on offer versus product, an explicit niche, communication at the right awareness level and a channel that delivers that message.

If you built in the dark, don't romanticize the burial or the attachment. Present it, ask, adjust the offer or the target, talk to the decision maker, keep costs low. And if you have to, cut 95% of the monster and sell the piece that solves the problem.

The market doesn't owe your roadmap anything. It pays attention to a problem someone already feels, and to an offer that makes the exchange obvious.

---

Watch the full video at O que você precisa saber para começar a VENDER seu SaaS (in Portuguese). There I go into detail on offer versus product, who it's for and who it isn't for, the five levels of awareness, channels, and the story of the white elephant I pivoted to early childhood education.