Should you launch a 25% done product?

In partnership with

Short answer?

Yes.

Long answer?

Keep reading.

Note: I’ve shared recommendations by an SEO domain expert below as well, give that a read - I found it quite helpful for us.

2 months ago, we launched a product that was only 25% complete (Roadmap perspective).

Today, it has 300+ users and triple-digit MRR.

Without paid marketing.

Here's what we learned...

Why 25% might be better than 100%

Most founders make the same mistake.

They spend months (sometimes years) perfecting their product before launch. Adding features.

Polishing the design.

Making everything "just right."

But:

(Disclaimer: Unless the “product” is in an R&D intensive field).

Two months ago, we launched LiGo when it was just 25% complete.

No fancy design.

Limited features.

Just the core functionality that solved one specific problem.

The results surprised even us.

The only feature that actually matters

Here's what most people get wrong about early launches:

They think "minimum viable" means "barely functional."

It doesn't.

Your 25% needs to be the right 25% - what I call the "10x feature."

It's the one thing that solves your customer's biggest pain point so well that everything else can wait.

For ligo, we focused solely on building that 10x feature:

• Skipped the nice-to-haves

• Ignored the "wouldn't it be cool if" features

• Built pure, problem-solving value

What happened when we launched early

The numbers tell an interesting story:

• 300+ users in 2 months

• Triple-digit MRR

• Zero paid marketing

• 20+ user interviews

But the real value wasn't in the revenue.

It was in the insights.

How to approach SEO for a SaaS product

I am not an SEO expert, but this is an area we’re going to be heavily focus on, led by Rassam, from our side.

I asked Aaron Sommerville who's the CEO at an agency specializing in SEO, and here’s the advice he gave (save it somewhere, it will come in handy when you launch:

“

So we have some Saas companies we are actively working on, Automatic Prospects is our current focus and we are doing everything below)
Here’s our blog - https://automaticprospects.com/blog 

I wanted to give you the best advice / feedback I could so I spoke with my co-founder for 30 minutes.

1. Get on SpyFu (You can go with the free plan here) find your Competitors and Keywords.
 https://www.spyfu.com/ 

2. Use ChatGPT / Claude to generate 100 articles / blog posts.
They don’t have to be good, we are not going for quality yet. We essentially casting a net so to speak!

3. Implement Google Search Console and implement free version of Ahrefs.
 https://ahrefs.com/pricing (under Solutions for beginners)

4. Improve from there. Let it run for a week. Ahrefs will Email you with all the changes you need to make. After a few weeks you'll see which articles are ranking in Google Search Console and once some have ranked you can use Rival Flow AI (also has a free plan). https://www.rivalflow.com/pricing 

The key here is to start! You can’t achieve search rankings without having articles and blogs on your website. Think of your initial content as the base of a pizza—it might seem plain at first, but it's essential for holding everything together. Once this foundation is in place, SEO tools become effective in enhancing and optimizing your content to improve your rankings.

Clarification: All the SEO tools in the world won't work until you have your foundational articles and blog posts in place. These articles provide the necessary content that tools can then help improve and optimize, leading to better search engine performance. It's about securing that initial "lift" by creating a base of content before leveraging advanced tools for further enhancement.

Backlinks are important for SEO as well and the above will be moot without it, as a result you want to get as many backlinks as possible, the most direct way to do that and control the outcome is by listing on directories.

Here is a list of directories for SaaS: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1PQfJqE_te24Kf2REno_KtfO7Gq0A6rbzs6HmoMjOqjA/edit?usp=sharing

“

Note: Aaron is also building a group of Entrepreneurs who are at different stages of their journey. The goal is to help them connect, learn and grow. If you are a founder and would like to join, here’s the link:

Writer RAG tool: build production-ready RAG apps in minutes

• Writer RAG Tool: build production-ready RAG apps in minutes with simple API calls.

• Knowledge Graph integration for intelligent data retrieval and AI-powered interactions.

• Streamlined full-stack platform eliminates complex setups for scalable, accurate AI workflows.

Learn more about our production ready RAG tooling here.

The feedback loop that changed everything

Those 20+ user interviews showed us something fascinating:

What we thought was valuable wasn't always what users found valuable.

Real users showed us exactly:

• Which features they actually used

• What they wanted more of

• What they could live without

This led to two unexpected opportunities:

We discovered entirely new industry use-cases we hadn't considered.

Two major sectors where our product, with slight adjustments, could solve significant problems.

We would have missed these if we'd spent months building in isolation.

Turn early interest into paying customers

Here's one tactic that worked particularly well for us:

Email courses.

We created a free email course that helps users understand the problem space better.

It builds trust, delivers value, and naturally demonstrates why our solution matters.

Want to see how we structured it?

I've set up the course so you can study its format:

Subscribe not just for the content, but to analyze how we:

• Structure the lessons

• Build engagement

• Convert interest into action

It's a live case study in customer conversion.

What's next for us?

For the last two weeks, we've been building the remaining 75% - but with a crucial difference.

We're not guessing anymore.

We know exactly what to build because our users told us.

And that's worth more than any amount of internal brainstorming.

The takeaway?

Launch at 25% if:

• Your core feature truly solves a pain point

• You're ready to learn from real users

• You can handle feedback (even when it hurts)

Don't launch at 25% if:

• Your core feature isn't solid yet

• You're not ready to adapt based on feedback

• You're hoping to "fix it later"

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Would love to hear your thoughts on this. Have you launched something before it felt ready? What happened?

Cheers,

Junaid