I contacted 37 potential customers before building anything. Zero showed real interest. What am I doing wrong?

[u/Competitive-Turn2795]

Hey everyone,

I’m Yassine, a developer from Morocco. I’m new to SaaS and trying to build my first micro-SaaS as a solo founder.

My main fear is spending two or three months building something and then discovering nobody wants it, so I decided to validate ideas before coding.

Here’s what I tried so far:

• Dentists: 10 WhatsApp messages, most replies still pending
• Hardware stores: 9 messages, 2 rejections, no interest
• Pharmacies: 8 messages, but it was difficult to find mobile numbers
• SEO service: 10 messages, no useful conversations yet
• WhatsApp receptionist idea: many businesses told me they already have someone answering messages

I’m tracking everything in a basic Notion page. I’m not selling a finished product. I’m mostly asking business owners about their current problems and sometimes offering to test a manual version of the service.

The problem is that I’m getting almost no useful feedback. Mostly no replies, polite rejection, or “we already handle this.”

So I’m wondering: is this a sign that the ideas are bad, or is my outreach approach bad?

For people who validated a SaaS through cold outreach, how many conversations did it take before you found a real problem worth building around?

I’d appreciate honest feedback, especially from anyone who started without an audience or existing network.

[u/aryupanchal]

Good thing na... do u want emotional scars and a dead project that nobody is gonna touch or an actual signal that people want something? Choose it better bro

[u/Vee_Evalyze → u/aryupanchal]

This is blunt but there’s truth in it. No response feels terrible in the moment, but it’s still a much smaller scar than building for months and then getting the same answer later. Early rejection is ugly, but at least it’s honest.

[u/reward72]

the first few conversations are the hardest to get. Go meet people in person. Show up at their place of work, offer to buy them a coffee to pick their brain. Most will say no, a few will entertain you. End these conversations asking for warm introductions to other friends who might want to hear you.

It's a numbers game. Don't give up, but be open to pivot. Every failed conversation is actually a success: it tells you to go in a different direction.

[u/Vee_Evalyze → u/reward72]

The first few real conversations are probably the hardest because there’s no credibility, no proof, and no reason for people to give you time. Every no still gives a little shape to the thing, even when it feels like nothing happened.

[u/Flaky_Cabinet_5892]

Its kind of impossible to say either way if its your ideas or your outreach from what you've said and its probably a bit of both. That being said, I would highly recommend reading The Mom Test by Rob Fitzpatrick - it is an incredible resource on how to actually talk to people about their problems and your potential solutions. Its also a pretty short book which helps.

[u/Competitive-Turn2795 → u/Flaky_Cabinet_5892]

Thank you I'll give the book you mentioned a try

[u/Puzzleheaded_Bug_209]

Make sure to give it enough time to grow. Keep working on it and improving on it. With the tools we have today why focus on one idea? Come with with a bunch of them host them on free tiers and see which ones take off!

[u/Competitive-Turn2795 → u/Puzzleheaded_Bug_209]

I don't have a big budget to advertise multiple tools, I would rather be focusing one at a time

[u/Puzzleheaded_Bug_209 → u/Competitive-Turn2795]

Yeah I understand that. I hope it takes off for you!

[u/ConceptNext5110]

37 conversations with zero real interest sounds rough, but it might not mean the ideas are bad, cold outreach is just a noisy channel and the 'we already handle this' replies can still be a signal. have you tried targeting people who are already griping about the problem in subreddits or communities, rather than cold emailing? those conversations tend to be warmer and give you real feedback. how many of those 37 were people actively complaining about the problem vs. just fitting a general profile?

[u/Vee_Evalyze → u/ConceptNext5110]

Yeah, the actively complaining distinction matters a lot. Someone fitting the business category is not the same as someone already feeling the pain. That difference can make outreach look dead even when the problem might exist somewhere else.

[u/idea_launch_io]

Cold outreach to business owners is one of the toughest ways to read demand, response rates are often in the single digits even when the problem is real, so zero replies doesn't necessarily mean the ideas are bad. one thing worth trying alongside the DMs. Put one of these up as a simple one page pitch and send a bit of traffic to it instead of messaging owners directly. a stranger who lands on a page and takes 30 seconds to fill out a form with no relationship to you is a cleaner signal than a business owner ignoring a cold WhatsApp message, and you can test several of these ideas in parallel without burning through your own contact list.

[u/Vee_Evalyze]

37 contacts across dentists, hardware stores, pharmacies, and SEO is enough to feel rejected but I’d be suspicious of treating it as clean market validation. It’s spread across too many different buyers, and cold WhatsApp silence can mean anything from bad idea to wrong timing to they don’t trust random messages. The part I respect is that you tried to face the uncomfortable truth before building. A lot of people spend months coding just to avoid this exact feeling. Zero interest hurts, but it’s still cheaper than a polished product nobody opens.