From Idea to First Paying Customers in 3 Weeks

Key Results

The Challenge

Marco had spent 8 years managing boutique hotels across Southern Europe. He knew the pain: small hotels juggle bookings across Booking.com, Airbnb, and direct inquiries using spreadsheets, WhatsApp groups, and sticky notes. He wanted to build a simple tool that synced availability across platforms in real-time.

The problem: Marco had zero technical experience and a limited budget. He'd already spent €3,000 on a freelancer who disappeared after two weeks with nothing to show.

He came to Soatech with a clear vision, a tighter budget, and a healthy dose of skepticism.

Our Approach

Week 1: Discovery + Design (Days 1–5)

We started with a 90-minute discovery call to understand Marco's users, their pain points, and what the MVP absolutely needed vs. what could wait. We ruthlessly cut scope:

In the MVP:

• Calendar view showing all bookings across platforms
• Automatic sync with Booking.com and Airbnb via iCal
• Manual booking entry for phone/email reservations
• Simple dashboard with occupancy rates
• Stripe billing for the SaaS subscription

Cut from MVP (phase 2):

• Direct API integration with OTAs
• Revenue management / dynamic pricing
• Multi-property management
• Guest communication tools

Our designer delivered wireframes within 48 hours. Marco approved with minor tweaks the next day.

Week 2: Core Development (Days 6–12)

Two developers worked in parallel:

• Developer 1: Authentication, user onboarding, Stripe subscription setup, and the dashboard layout
• Developer 2: Calendar engine, iCal sync logic, booking CRUD, and the availability conflict detection

We used Supabase for the backend — authentication, database, and real-time subscriptions out of the box. This let us skip weeks of backend boilerplate and focus on the actual product logic.

Daily 15-minute standups with Marco kept us aligned. He could see progress in a staging environment from day 1.

Week 3: Polish + Launch (Days 13–21)

• Responsive design polish — 70% of hoteliers check bookings on mobile
• Error handling for sync failures (iCal feeds can be unreliable)
• Onboarding flow with a guided setup wizard
• Landing page with pricing, features, and a "Start Free Trial" CTA
• Production deployment, monitoring, and Stripe webhook testing

We launched on a Friday. Marco sent the link to 30 hotel owners he knew personally.

The Results

First 30 days after launch:

• 12 paying customers on the €29/month plan
• 87% trial-to-paid conversion (the problem was real enough that users paid quickly)
• Zero critical bugs in the first month
• Average session duration: 8 minutes — users were actively using it daily, not just signing up and forgetting

Within 90 days, Marco had 40+ paying customers and enough revenue to fund phase 2 development.

Key Takeaways

1. Scope discipline is everything. Marco's original feature list would have taken 4 months. By focusing on the one thing that mattered most — calendar sync — we launched in 3 weeks and validated demand before building more.

2. Supabase accelerated development dramatically. Auth, database, and real-time subscriptions from a managed service meant our developers spent time on product logic, not infrastructure. For MVPs, this is the right trade-off.

3. The founder's network is the first distribution channel. Marco didn't need a marketing strategy. He needed a product good enough to show 30 people he already knew. That personal network generated the first 12 customers.

Technology Stack