Software is never finished. There's always another feature. That's not your problem. Your problem is you have no filter for deciding what's worth building.

Build the filter around willingness to pay.

Start with what MVP actually means. Most founders hear "minimum" and "product" and skip the word in the middle. Viable is the whole game.

Minimal: the fewest features that work.
Viable: someone will pay for it. Not "it functions." Not "it's useful." They open their wallet.
Product: it ships and people use it.

Skip viable and you get a minimum product: something that works, that you built, that nobody pays for. That's most of what dies in this market.

You can add features forever and still never get paid. I've watched teams burn weeks of dev time on features nobody would buy, while the features people would pay for sat in the queue. Every hour spent building the wrong thing is an hour stolen from the right thing.

So put a gate in front of your roadmap. Nothing gets added without passing it.

The roadmap gate. Before a feature goes on the roadmap, it needs three things:

A firm number for the expected revenue lift. Not "customers want this." How much new or retained revenue does it generate? If you can't estimate it, you don't understand it well enough to build it.
A wireframe. Sketch the design before anyone writes code.
Validation from real beta users against that wireframe. Ask them straight: "If this existed, how much would you pay to use it?" If the answer is nothing, don't build it. No exceptions.

Turn requests into commitments. Interest is not payment. "I'd love feature X" costs a prospect nothing to say. So when someone asks for feature X, your next line is: "Will you buy it once it's built?" If yes, close it now:

Subscribe today, with payment.
Commit to a term, 6 or 12 months.
We extend your subscription by the time it takes to ship X.
Which do you want, 6 or 12?

That proves demand with money, funds the build, and ranks the roadmap by who's actually paying.

Mine your losses. Your best roadmap data is sitting in your closed-lost deals, and most people waste it. "Missing features" as a drop-down reason tells you nothing. Instead, capture what was actually missing in an open text field, every time you lose. Then run those notes through AI to categorize the patterns. Now you know exactly which features are costing you deals, and how many, so you can build against real lost revenue instead of guesses.

Don't build on wishes. Build on numbers and signed commitments.

It starts with an inward locus of control, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locus_of_control

Individuals with a strong internal locus of control believe events in their life are primarily a result of their own actions: for example, when receiving exam results, people with an internal locus of control tend to praise or blame themselves and their abilities. People with a strong external locus of control tend to praise or blame external factors such as the teacher or the difficulty of the exam.[2]

Focus on learning on how to take that setback and analyze your roll in the setback. Now you can turn the setback into a learning opportunity. Adjust your approach to optimize the odds of success in your favour for the next iteration.

It is also critical to realize there are two types of games in life.

1) Finite Games: Known players, fixed rules, an agreed-upon objective (e.g. baseball). In a finite game, there is a clearly defined end point and there are winners and losers.

2) Infinite Games: Known and unknown players, changeable rules and the objective to keep the game in play (e.g. the cold war). There game ends when someone stops playing

Life and success are Infinite games. Failure or set backs only become permanent if you stop playing. If you keep trying and learning from your mistakes, setbacks become a temporary state.

then you goal is to get the first review, drop your price - offer to give your fee to charity - give people a reason to try you out.

I worked for an Email Service Provider for four years. There is a big difference between sending an email and having it get past the spam filter and inboxed.

Just like location is key in real-estate, deliverability is the key when it comes to email marketing.

If the prospect never sees the email - does it matter how cheaply it was sent?

I'd suggest a split test sending a segment of your via multiple senders, and then measuring unique opens & click-thrus.

If it is a purchased list - you'll want to scrub it to make sure your deliverability doesn't tank overnight if you send to a spam trap.

I'd suggest using 2 services at a minimum. 1 Service to send to cold email addresses, and when someone opens or clicks on a link transfer that email to the 2nd service. You may need to replace service 1 frequently if deliverability drops.

That will keep the openers and clickers from getting nuked when if you have a spam trap on your purchased list.

To answer this question you'll need to know the lifetime value of an affiliate that joins your program. Once you calculate the value then you'll be able to determine what you can afford to pay.

I would also look at qualifying what constitutes a valid referral to your affiliate program. The lifetime value of the average affiliate who joins your program is of little value compared to the lifetime value of an affiliate who joins and driving traffic in the first 30 days. Or better yet sales in the first 30 days.

When you calculate the lifetime value of :
An affiliate eho drives traffic in the first 30 days or;
An affiliate who drives sales in the first 30 days you will find that the value is significantly higher (so you can pay more for these referrals)

I would not pay for just joining the program. Up to 90% of these sign ups may not drive traffic. Another concern is that some affiliates may incentivize sign ups, for commission, so you will want to specifically prohibit incentivized traffic.

Keep your criteria for a valid sign up ( # of clicks or # of sales) confidential so affiliates do not exploit the system.

Hope this helps.

Mick

This question could be asking two questions. How do you scrape a b2b email marketing list, or how do I find a one of email address for a targeted email.

With regards to scraping a list, this is fraught with the possibility of killing your deliverability. It is so easy to add a spam trap. It might me much easier to have people mail on your behalf with a call to action on a squeeze page to join your list.

If you are looking for targeted names for sales people to email one on one I find hunter.io a very useful too.

Goodluck.

Mick

There will not be one optimal size. Each affiliate will have their own needs.

Here is a list of the common sizes: http://designerstoolbox.com/designresources/banners/

I find it most helpful to send out a survey monkey poll to affiliates directly. I'd also ask your top affiliates directly. Don't rely on stats from the network panel, as many affiliates will strip off the banner and use the URL for a text link, which will skew the reporting.

Once you decide on the best sizes for your affiliates. Change your banners at least once a quarter. Ideally, create themed banners for each holiday. Changing banners frequently will drive more clicks and sales.

I've seen SaaS companies pay 20-30% recurring lifetime commission for simply referring a paying customer.

If they are going to be attending trade shows, providing localized Clinical & Technical support it sounds almost too good. I'd be concerned that they have enough margin to actively promote and support your product.

I'd also want to set sales targets in any reseller agreement to give yourselves the ability to terminate weak performers.

Happy to jump on a call to discuss.

A reseller typically purchases the SaaS at a discounted price and bill their client directly.

I've seen reseller discounts range between 10% and 50%. The discount should be competitive with your industry, and allow a reasonable ROI for resellers. The reseller discount is typically for the life of the user otherwise expect resellers to offer their clients a competitor's SaaS.

An affiliate or partner program that pays a commission for referring clients creates a direct relationship between your company and the users. In these types of programs, your commission could be a one-time payout upon referral, a recurring % of sale for the first year, or a recurring % of sale for the life of the client.

Podcaster/bloggers are less interested in commission than maintaining their relationship with their audience.

I've found that approaching bloggers with an opportunity for early access, prizes for giveaways, free product to review is far more effective as an icebreaker.

Once they have a review or podcast then you can have a conversation on how they can monetize it via affiliate links.

Additionally email may be the wrong venue to approach them, your email could be getting lost in the noise if they are getting a ton of unsolicited emails daily.

If the opportunity is big enough send a small gift to get their attention. Stand apart from the crowd.

Hope this helps.

Mick