How to Be More Desirable to Potential Technical Cofounders

Hello SaaStronauts!

In this issue:

• How to Be More Desirable to Potential Technical Cofounders
• Cognitive Biases You Can Use to Make a Better (or Worse) SaaS
• Don't Automate Until You Have To
• Don't Make This Mistake When Hiring a VP of Sales
• Work Less With Internal Documentation

🚀 Let's blastoff!

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👨‍💻 How to Be More Desirable to Potential Technical Cofounders

• It is very challenging to start a SaaS if you are not a technical founder.
• If you can't code, you should find a technical cofounder.
• You need to bring more to the table than just your idea if you want to get a cofounder.
• One great way to bring an equal skill is to find customers for the business. It's the most important, and often hardest part. If you don't have customers, you don't have a business.
• Alternatively, some SaaS ideas can be built entirely with non-technical no-code tools. Even if it's just a prototype, this can be a useful starting point for a technical cofounder.

Our takeaways from "How to Start a SaaS Business with No Money". Watch this video.

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🧠 Cognitive Biases You Can Use to Make a Better (or Worse) SaaS

• The availability heuristic is a cognitive bias that causes us to only consider the things right in front of us. Tech companies use this by personalizing your dashboard, like Netflix.
• The affect heuristic causes people to make quick judgements based on their first feeling right off the bat.
• The anchor-and-adjustment heuristic is when a basic idea, or "anchor", is then augmented with small adjustments. This is commonly seen in SaaS pricing tiers.
• The endowment effect is when we overvalue something we own just because we own it. The owners of things value them twice as much as non owners.
• Hindsight bias is when we later think we were able to predict something more than we actually did. "I knew it all along..."
• The sunk cost fallacy is feeling like you need to complete your investment because you have already invested so much. Like finishing a movie you started even though you don't like it.
• The halo effect is when we believe something is entirely good just because one particular feature about it is good.
• Social proof is a bias towards things that many others are already doing. Think "bandwagoning".
• The IKEA effect is overvaluing something you participated in creating, even if the actual value and look is identical to something already created.
• The scarcity effect is when a consumer overvalued something because of its perceived limited quantity.

Our takeaways from "10 cognitive biases that shape our". Read this article.

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⚙️ Don't Automate Until You Have To

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😎 Don't Make This Mistake When Hiring a VP of Sales

• Founders should keep participating in sales even after they have hired a VP to run their sales. Because...
• The sales person will need time to learn how you prefer to sell your product.
• Customers live talking to founders. It will boost sales.
• Having the founders involved in the sales processes early on can give your sales person an early boost in confidence they need while learning the ropes.

Our takeaways from "The 1 Mistake I See Founders Make When They Hire Their First VP of Sales". Read this article.

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📓 Work Less With Internal Documentation

• Internal documentation is a set of documents used for information sharing within your team.
• Not having some internal documentation leads to communication breakdowns and duplication of work.
• Your internal docs can save you time by making a lot of things reusable, can handle most of your onboarding for you, and makes most information sharing simple and instant.
• Types of documentation can include: project, team, onboarding, and process documentation.
• A few tips...
• Go in-depth on topics, but keep your language simple.
• Use lots of screenshots and visualizations.
• Make sure your search and navigation work great. This is very important as your document set grows.
• Make your paragraphs short, and use lots of bulleted lists when appropriate.
• Involve all employees in your documentation. Make sure they know how to navigate and contribute.
• Revisit old documents to update things as information changes.

Our takeaways from "How to Create Awesome Internal Documentation - A Complete Guide". Read this guide.

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