Finding Product-Market Fit: 9 Doctors Signed Before Code

Luke Kervin walked into a doctor's office with a business card for a company that didn't exist and a product he hadn't built. He walked out with a signed contract for $500 a month. He did that nine times before writing a single line of code. That SaaS product validation approach was Luke's method for finding product-market fit - and it launched PatientPop.

Luke's PMF journey started with failure. His original healthcare idea flopped, but asking doctors what kept them up at night revealed a much bigger opportunity. Validating product-market fit took under two weeks with nothing but business cards and a brochure. Then he proved the model by manually driving 21 new patients per practice in the first 30 days.

Luke Kervin is the co-CEO of PatientPop, an all-in-one practice growth platform for healthcare providers. The company was founded in 2014, raised $24 million, and scaled to 142 employees in just two years with a field sales team closing at 30%+ rates.

🔑 Key Lessons

• 🎯 Finding product-market fit doesn't require code: Luke signed 9 paying doctors using only business cards, a brochure, and a landing page - proving demand in under two weeks.
• 📉 A failed idea can lead to finding product-market fit gold: Luke's original idea flopped, but asking doctors what kept them up at night revealed a much bigger opportunity worth $24 million in funding.
• 🤝 Hire two sales reps to avoid false conclusions: One rep crushed it while the other struggled - hiring only one could have led to the wrong conclusion about product viability.
• 🚀 Manual delivery proves product-market fit faster than code: By manually building directory profiles and websites, PatientPop drove 21 new patients per practice in 30 days - validating before automating.
• 🏢 Moving upmarket requires a different playbook: PatientPop jumped into mid-market sales too early and discovered larger practices had different needs, longer sales cycles, and required a different selling process.

Chapters

• Introduction
• Meet Luke Kervin and PatientPop
• What PatientPop does for healthcare providers
• How the idea started in a doctor's office
• The pivot from failed idea to finding product-market fit
• Validating demand without a product
• All nine doctors signed up
• Proving product-market fit with a manual MVP
• Tactics that drove 21 new patients per practice
• Growing the sales team and early mistakes
• Criteria for choosing what business to build
• Why hiring two sales reps matters
• Building the executive team
• Mistakes moving to mid-market too fast
• Pricing model and expansion opportunities
• Fundraising strategy across angel, seed, and Series A
• Lightning round

Resources

• Full show notes: https://saasclub.io/126
• Join 5,000+ SaaS founders: https://saasclub.io/email