Show the first version to a few people inside and let them spread it

Jordan RejaudIn this situation, it's a bit different. Prison is a closed ecosystem, and so you can't easily send them a link to, you know, your web page and they can check out your idea and you collect email addresses. It's not going to work. So in this step, validating the idea and building the MVP were the same thing. I had to build the MVP, get it in front of them in order to validate it.

Jordan RejaudSo I talked to my contacts in the prison. I said, "Hey, here's this tool I want to build. I heard you guys are currently using older technology, doesn't work very well, it's overpriced. So here's what I envision could be a better product for you." And so you get a lot of feedback. People were super responsive for this. People were telling other people about it. And like I said, within a month, I had 200 users, and that was enough for me to validate it.

Pat WallsOkay, cool. So, you kind of mentioned a little bit earlier that you're the type of person that has lots and lots of business ideas. I think a lot of people watching this channel also feel the same. They want to build lots and lots of things. So what would be your advice for someone watching this who wants to build something and make sure it's validated?

Pat Walls… or insight is that validation isn't a specific framework or strategy. So if you're coming on here watching this thinking, okay, I'll follow this, and I'll validate, like you said, just do it. So validate fast, validate often, validate early. That's what I see from the hundreds of people that we've brought onto this YouTube channel. Let's talk about growth. How'd you get people to use your thing and eventually turn it into a 300K per year app?

Jordan RejaudSo prison is a closed ecosystem. It is very difficult if you're on the outside to communicate and vice versa. So I had a few people on the inside who I was talking about with my project, and they just showed it to other people. And then those people showed it to other people, because if you create a good product and it resonates with people, people will be your zealots, right? They'll be your cultists. Like, I've heard this expression, "Apple doesn't have customers, they have cult members." And that's- it's kind of an exaggeration, but it's true. Lots of people who like these products want to talk about it.

Jordan RejaudSo, it's all word of mouth, honestly. [laughs] I know people want like a cooler answer, but no, it's just all word of mouth. I did build an internal recruitment system where if one of our customers would recruit another customer, and the other person signed up and started paying for the product, the first person would get like a month or so of free credits. So that helped. The way you want to think about growth in entrepreneurship is as a scientist. So just be willing to experiment, be willing to fail, come with a strategy, it's probably terrible, but you'll get data back and then you will be able to reiterate on that.

Pat WallsOkay, I 100% agree with that. I want to change topics and actually talk about this app. Can you explain what is the actual app that you've built that makes $300,000 a year?