SaaS startup founders often neglect a very important goal area when planning for next year. This question won’t appear in any planning frameworks, but it creates a powerful multiplier that will make achieving your other goals easier:

What’s the best and most irrefutable CREDIBILITY you can create next year that you don’t have now?

I bet that wasn’t one of your 2024 planning questions, but it should be.

Credibility is the hidden food group of your messaging meal. You probably don’t think about it, but it’s always there.

You already tell us WHAT is thing you sell, WHO it is for, WHY it’s beneficial for your customers, and HOW it’s different than alternatives.

But startups have one more question to answer that big companies have already answered: WHY SHOULD I BELIEVE YOU?

When you think about it, this is often the only difference to a customer between your product that works great and your big competitor’s product that also works great. Bigger companies are more credible.

Credibility is the thing you can say that makes everything more believable. You will see it on every homepage of popular software products:

• Well-known customer logos with quotes and testimonials
• Big number: hundreds served, thousands delivered, millions of $ saved
• Free trial and demo – see for yourself!
• Big VC funding is a major credibility milestone for many
• Industry awards, review site badges, 5-star customer ratings
• Partnerships or integrations with big players
• New York Times best-selling author

When your scrappy startup doesn’t have any credibility yet–few customers, no proven ROI testimonials, no celebrity CEO, no VC funding–you have to sell with the personal credibility of the founder.

How much faster would you go if you could say one of those credibility points when you describe what you do? A lot.

Let’s look at my own credibility. Why should you believe anything I say here on LinkedIn? It’s a good question.

Here are my main credibility points that I repeat often:

1.  Over 30 years operating and growing successful software companies from startup to global scale, including an IPO from a company I cofounded.
2.  I’m a paid advisor to 40 practical SaaS CEOs every year who are building valuable software companies without big funding.
3.  My regular posts on LinkedIn are very popular with lots of likes and comments: 2 million impressions of my posts in the last 90 days.

Take all of those away and I’m just another person sharing insights on LinkedIn. My credibility is one of the reasons you and others are reading this.

Here’s another hidden credibility multiplier: consistent FOCUS. Specialists are more credible than generalists, all other things equal.

Credibility usually doesn’t just happen; it is deliberately created by making it a goal with a plan and tasks just like everything else.

What’s the most irrefutable thing you can create next year that will drastically increase the believability of everything else you say?

#practicalfounders