Optimal framework for developing and launching AI-first SaaS products and apps

Over the past few months, our team has developed more AI-first SaaS products than ever before, and for good reason. These products enable entrepreneurs to create scalable, sellable assets that have a real impact on their customers.

But while the rewards are great, the process is anything but simple. A lot can go wrong, so a structured approach is crucial. In this article, I’ll walk you step by step through our end-to-end framework, from idea to exit.

The Framework

Our framework goes beyond just development. It covers everything you need, from concept validation to growth and a potential exit.

Part 1: Founder–Opportunity Fit (FOF)

One of the most underrated factors for early SaaS success is the founder–opportunity fit: how well does the idea align with your expertise, network, and personal energy?

When that alignment is strong, your chance of achieving product–market fit within the first year increases by 3–5x. That’s not exactly surprising. If you’ve worked in a particular industry (like coaching, marketing, or healthcare), you’ve likely experienced its pain points firsthand.

When evaluating new ideas, ask yourself: How much do I know about this problem? How strong is my network in this industry? How much energy does this opportunity give me?

If you score low on two or more of these points, it’s probably not the right opportunity to pursue.

Part 2: Market Validation

What many entrepreneurs do as soon as they have an idea is start building immediately. That’s fun for the developer or agency, but not necessarily the smartest move.

Before you start building, it’s essential to validate both intent and demand.

We begin with a collaborative brainstorming session. In that session, we map out the idea to ensure a shared understanding. We note down all ideas (no filter, no judgment - just raw, energetic concepts).

From there, we refine the concept into a strong, feasible, and realistic value proposition and business model.

Next, we quickly turn that proposition into a landing page. You can have a web developer do this, or use AI coding tools like Lovable.

The idea is to set up the landing page as if the product already exists, including a call-to-action inviting people to join a waitlist. That way, you immediately start collecting interested leads.

During signup, ask visitors a few simple questions about the problem domain, their needs, and interests. This gives you valuable data before you’ve built anything, data that helps sharpen the product and plan.

Once the basics are in place, you start selling. Launch marketing campaigns (ads) and run A/B tests on value propositions, core problems, and messaging to see what resonates best.

You continue until you hit your target number of waitlist signups. 100 is often a good benchmark, depending on your business.

This way, you test your product, proposition, and business idea for a few hundred euros instead of thousands for an MVP.

Part 3: MVP/POC Development

Once you’ve gathered enough data and reached your targets, it’s time to build.

The biggest mistake founders make is overbuilding. The first version doesn’t need to impress investors, it just needs to prove that the product solves the problem.

Together, we analyze all collected data and refine the value proposition.

Then we create a detailed technical plan: a comprehensive blueprint of the solution, including all functionalities. This plan outlines the MVP, possible extensions, system architecture, and the team required.

Once the plan is finalized, the build phase begins. Our development team manages the entire process end to end and ensures internal test users are satisfied.

On average, building an MVP takes between 2 and 6 weeks, depending on complexity.

Part 4: MVP Launch + GTM-Ready Product

Once the MVP is complete and internally tested, it’s time to activate the waitlist (while continuing the campaigns from Part 2) and give early users access—possibly at a reduced price or even for free.

At this stage, you’ll get lots of user feedback. The development team uses that input to refine the product, fix bugs, and gradually expand it into a full-fledged system.

It’s crucial to keep tracking key metrics during this phase—activation rate, retention (after 7 days, 30 days, etc.), and other core statistics—to understand how the product is performing.

Once you have a solid foundation, a few key steps follow:

• Set up your GTM (go-to-market) infrastructure: marketing automation, onboarding flows, pricing model tests, payment system integration.

• Keep building and closely monitoring all development tasks.

At this point, the team usually consists of 3 to 8 people (often toward the lower end nowadays). In our experience, that typically includes one Product Owner (Stonewell project manager), one or two developers (Stonewell developers), you as the entrepreneur and domain expert, plus a few fractional specialists (e.g., campaign management).

As the company grows, you’ll naturally add specialists in marketing and sales, customer support, onboarding, etc.

At this point, you’re GTM-ready: you have a strong core team, validated product–market fit, and are ready to scale. The hardest part is behind you, now it’s about investing and growing.

This is often when angel investors come in, or when additional capital is invested by existing partners to expand the team, scale marketing, and grow the business further.

Part 5: Scaling and Exit

This is the phase few projects reach, and one we haven’t fully entered ourselves yet.
What I can say is that at this point, you face one key decision:

Do you want to turn the product into a lean, profitable system (small team of 3–8 people, strong MRR, 30–50% margins) and aim for a micro-exit? Or go for aggressive scaling, growing to 20–30+ people and a larger exit?

For lean operators, smaller SaaS exits typically range from 3–5x annual profit.
That could mean, for example, selling a product with $25k MRR (about $300k ARR) for $900k–$1.5M, depending on the buyer and churn.

For venture-driven scale-ups, the game changes. Once you hit $1M ARR with less than 10% churn, valuations often jump to 5–10x ARR, especially with 100%+ annual growth and a CAC/LTV ratio above 1:3. At that level, you’re in a great spot and investors or buyers start calling you.

The choice between staying small or scaling hard is crucial, as it completely determines your growth strategy. If you choose to scale to 30+ people, you’ll need structure: a dedicated GTM lead (marketing, partnerships, enterprise deals), a CTO, a layered support system, and a strong management team.

It’s not easy, but if executed well, you can achieve 7- or even 8-figure exits, with some of the highest multiples ever seen.

As mentioned, we’re not in that phase yet. Once we are, I’ll share more details and numbers. For now, you’ve got more than enough practical insights from steps 1 through 4.