get 30 people to fully commit to pay for your product before you even start coding it.
This seems like sound advice, but I'd like to hear more on the execution of it. Do you actually get these people to sign contracts, or is it more of getting people to say "yeah, I'll pay you for that"? Do you let them know you haven't written any code, or just say it's "in development"? Etc., etc.
Brennan Dunn and Nathan Barry have both appeared on HN a number of times, and their approaches to selling eBooks and SAASes have included the option to pre-order the book/prep-pay for the SAAS subscription at a discount.
Something like this works great when you have an audience and/or have some decent previews to show. (btw, my takeaway here is not 'this only works for internet-famous people,' but rather, 'it's a great idea to build an audience for your idea and show them previews to keep the leads hot')
This seems like sound advice, but I'd like to hear more on the execution of it. Do you actually get these people to sign contracts, or is it more of getting people to say "yeah, I'll pay you for that"? Do you let them know you haven't written any code, or just say it's "in development"? Etc., etc.