At Gingr (a B2B SaaS), we approached potential customers before writing a line of code. The conversation focused on their pain and how software can alleviate it. After talking about them, we asked if they’d be willing to beta test what we built as a result of our conversations. About 80% said yes. We beta tested and iterated for several months without asking for money. Once everyone loved the product we asked them to pay- everyone was happy to. After that we hired salespeople and opened up to the world.