Ferenc Fekete

Helping non-tech Founders transform Ideas into SaaS products @ VeryCreatives | Product Agency, SaaS & MVP Development | Startups

I've watched many startup founders fail at the same exact point: turning their validated idea into actual software.

They waste months (or even years):
→ Trying to hire the right developers
→ Burning cash on poor planning and execution
→ Second-guessing every technical decision along the way

Meanwhile, competitors move faster, investors demand traction, and the pressure to deliver keeps building more and more.

After watching this pattern destroy countless promising startups, we built VeryCreatives to fix it.

But here's what makes us different:

We don't just build your MVP and disappear. We're product people who think like founders, not just developers who code to spec.

👉 𝗩𝗮𝗹𝗶𝗱𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻-𝗳𝗶𝗿𝘀𝘁 𝗮𝗽𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗮𝗰𝗵: We start by pressure-testing your assumptions before writing a single line of code. If the market doesn't want it, we'll tell you straight.

👉 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗱𝘂𝗰𝘁 𝗺𝗶𝗻𝗱𝘀𝗲𝘁 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝗱𝗮𝘆 𝗼𝗻𝗲: We build like it's our own startup, obsessing over user experience, scalability, and investor readiness from the first sprint.

👉 𝗙𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝗶𝗱𝗲𝗮 𝘁𝗼 𝗲𝘅𝗶𝘁 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗯𝗲𝘆𝗼𝗻𝗱: Whether you're at napkin sketch or Series B, we've been there. We've helped founders go from zero to acquisition, and we stick around for the entire journey.

For the past 14 years, we've built products for venture-backed startups, fast-growing scale-ups, and globally recognized brands like Red Bull, Nestlé, and Philips.

The startups we work with have:
✅ Launched investor-ready MVPs in under 90 days
✅ Secured funding from top-tier investors and VCs
✅ Scaled from first users to thousands of paying customers
✅ Successfully exited to strategic acquirers

Got a SaaS idea that's been sitting in your head for months? 
Let's map out your 90-day path to launch → https://verycreatives.com/book-a-call

Co-Founder

At VeryCreatives, we are a team of expert developers who create powerful SaaS apps that solve problems and drive growth for founders with initial funding. We believe in empowering our clients with innovative software that helps them achieve their goals and stand out in their industry.

Our audience consists of driven and ambitious founders who have just received initial funding for their startup. They are looking for a software development partner who understands their vision, can help bring their ideas to life, and deliver results that will help them achieve their business goals.

Founders with initial funding have a pressing need to build their product quickly and efficiently to maximize their chances of success. At VeryCreatives, we understand this need and are dedicated to creating high-quality SaaS apps that not only meet their requirements but also exceed their expectations. We are committed to delivering value and results that help our clients succeed.

VeryCreatives stands out in the market for our ability to deliver high-quality, innovative solutions that meet the needs of our clients. Our unique approach to software development, coupled with our expertise and commitment to excellence, is what drives us to provide outstanding results to our clients.

Industries our clients operate in, using the SaaS products we've built: 
- Digital marketing, Event marketing & Influencer marketing SaaS
- Foodtech & Delivery 
- Fintech, Banking & Investments
- 2-sided marketplace platforms
- Agriculture & Livestock management
- Packaging compliance & Waste

Markets we cover: UAE, EU, UK, US.

Your product isn't the problem. Your budget split is.

I've built countless SaaS products and apps over the past decade for some of the biggest brands in the world. Here's the biggest mistake I see first-time SaaS founders make that kills their product:

They map out their entire product budget... and allocate 100% of it to development.

They're planning to build the full product, launch it, then HOPE customers show up.

But the problem is, a good product is only 50% of the equation. The other half is getting it in front of the right people (which costs a lot of money too).

Especially in B2B, you'll need to spend some cash to speed up your learning curve and learn:

👉 Which channels work
👉 What messages resonate
👉 What makes your ideal customers actually convert

Some founders ignore this until it's too late. And by that time, they've burned through their development budget and launched something that MIGHT be great without anyone actually knowing it exists.

That's why whenever we work with clients, we often help them adjust the product scope before building anything out. Because we want to free up budget for marketing, user acquisition, and proper positioning so they can actually get customers and scale the business.

You could have the best product in the world. But if nobody knows it exists, it won't mean a thing.

Before you finalize your budget, ask yourself:

What's my plan to get 100 people to see this?

Helping startup founders & innovation labs validate and scale ideas into exit-ready products @ VeryCreatives | 🔥 Two decades in tech

You created your own bad developers.

I have seen this pattern too many times.

Founder says:

"My devs are slow"
"They do not get it"

Then we look closer.

And see a decision vacuum the team is trying to survive.

There are three calls only you can make as the founder.

If you dodge them, even a strong team will look useless:


👉 Decision 1: Who is our primary user right now?

One founder I worked with tried to serve agencies and tiny solo founders at the same time.

Sales promised custom features to big accounts, product built self serve onboarding for tiny ones, devs got whiplash.

Nine months of work, nobody truly happy.


👉 Decision 2: What is the next business outcome we are willing to bet on?

MRR from a segment, activation rate, expansion from existing customers.

If this is not written down, every feature feels urgent.

You ship a lot of stuff and still cannot answer why revenue or usage is flat.


👉 Decision 3: What constraints are non negotiable?

Time, budget, compliance, integrations.

If these move every week, scope will quietly double and your v1 will arrive six months late.


Which of these three have you been dodging?

Most failed software projects don't fail at the finish line.

They fail in week 2, when the team realizes the core feature can't actually be built.

That's why one of the smartest things you can do as a SaaS founder, before writing a single line of code, is build a proof of concept.

Not a full product or MVP. Just enough to answer one question: "Can we actually build this thing?"

We've gone through this exact process hundreds of times for both our clients and our own internal tools.

Here's how it works:

👉 Proof of Concept (PoC): Does this work technically?

This is where you test your riskiest assumption. Can it even be built the way you imagine? It's not going to be pretty, and it's not public-facing. But it's real.

Skip this, and you're three months into development before realizing your AI feature needs data you can't legally access.

👉 Prototype: What will it look and feel like?

Map the user flow, add just enough UI to walk someone through it, and start shaping the product experience.

Skip this, and your dev team builds something technically correct that no user can figure out how to use.

👉 MVP: Will people actually use and pay for it?

Now you're testing the market. You've built something lean and functional to prove there's demand and that your positioning makes sense.

Skip this, and you spend 18 months perfecting a product nobody asked for.

A good proof of concept helps you spot technical roadblocks early and gives stakeholders the confidence that your idea is real.

It's faster (and cheaper) to find the cracks now than to rebuild everything later.

What's the riskiest technical assumption you've had to validate before building?

Your first 10 customers are friends.

Your next 100 are stress tests.

Most MVPs crack right there.

And it's rarely the thing you're watching for.

Not because of one big bug.

Because of 4 invisible gaps almost every founder forgets:


1. Role and permission basics

A single login is fine at the very start.

Then a bigger account asks "Can my team have different access levels?"

If the answer is no, that deal quietly dies.

👉 By month 6, if you don't have this, you'll start losing deals you never knew you lost.


2. Bulk actions for power users

Clicking one by one feels fine with 10 records.

At 1,000, people hate your product.

They will export to Excel and never come back.

👉 By month 6, if you don't have bulk edit or export, your power users are already halfway out the door.


3. Password reset that does not melt support

In the early days, you just "help people manually."

At 150 accounts, your inbox turns into "I cannot log in" hell.

👉 By month 3, if you don't have a clean self-service reset flow, your support load will bury your roadmap.


4. An internal admin tool

If every tiny change needs a developer, your roadmap will stall.

You cannot build new features and play support at the same time.

👉 By month 9, if you don't have a simple internal panel, your engineers are stuck doing data cleanup instead of shipping.


Audit your stack against this list. What's missing?

I Spent 6 Months Building a Product Nobody Wanted. Then Buffer Launched for $5.

Around 2010, we worked at a media agency.

We saw the chaos every day: social media posts bouncing between marketing, legal, and clients. Approvals lost in email threads. Deadlines missed.

So we decided to build the solution ourselves.

We went all in:

• Multi-tenant account management
• Multi-platform posting (Facebook, Twitter)
• Custom approval workflows
• Notifications, previews, media library
• Analytics dashboard
• Unified posting interface

Six months of nights and weekends. Thousands of lines of code.

We never talked to a single customer.

We thought we knew exactly what agencies needed. We worked in one. We lived the problem.

That was the trap.

While we were perfecting our approval flow logic, Buffer launched with a single post scheduler and a $5 beta signup.

They validated demand before building anything else.

We validated nothing. We just built.

Here's what I learned the hard way:

👉 Working in an industry doesn't mean you understand the market

Your experience is one data point. Not a business case.

👉 Features don't prove demand

Nobody cares about your feature list if they never asked for it.

👉 Skipping customer development is not a shortcut

It's the longest, most expensive path to failure.

The product died quietly. No dramatic crash. Just silence.

If you're building something right now, ask yourself:

Have I talked to 10 people who would pay for this?

If the answer is no, close your IDE and pick up the phone.

Chase Dimond

Top Ecommerce Email Marketer & Agency Owner | We’ve sent over 1 billion emails for our clients resulting in $200+ million in email attributable revenue.

I help brands make more money with email marketing.

I’m a Co-Founder of Structured, an ecommerce email marketing agency. Since launching in 2018, our team has helped brands send billions of emails and generate over $200M in email-attributable revenue.

We’re a top agency partner for platforms like Omnisend and Klaviyo.

Shopify featured me as a top email marketing influencer. I’ve also received LinkedIn’s Top Voice Award for Email Marketing, and Favikon has ranked me as the top email marketer across social media.

Some of the brands we’ve worked with include:

Poo~Pourri
Eight Sleep
Health-Ade
Mixtiles
Vessi

If you’re looking to hire an experienced email marketing agency, you can reach me here:

chase@chasedimond.com

——

Outside my agency, I run a number of other fast-growing businesses. I’m fortunate to have over 750,000+ followers and subscribers across my social channels and email newsletter.

I’ve worked with companies including:

LinkedIn
Amazon
TikTok
Gamma
Alibaba
Zapier
ClickUp

I work with a small number of paid sponsors and partners each year.

If you’re interested in exploring a potential fit, please email me with details:

chase@chasedimond.com

Founder

My newsletter is your no BS guide into what's working in email marketing - I'll give you the latest tips + tactics to help you drive more revenue from your email marketing channel. 

Sign up (it's free) here: https://chasedimond.com/chase-email-newsletter

Working with smart people is great.
But it is not enough.

Because intelligence can solve problems.
But humility and kindness build cultures where problems don’t have to exist in the first place.

Here’s why it matters so much 👇

Kind and humble people:

They make collaboration effortless.
You don’t waste energy defending ideas or egos. 
You build together - faster, cleaner, and with more trust.

They create psychological safety.
When people feel respected, they speak up, share bold ideas, 
and admit mistakes early. 
That’s how teams innovate and grow.

They inspire long-term loyalty.
People don’t leave companies - they leave toxic dynamics. 
Working with grounded, genuine teammates keeps great talent around.

 Ways to practice kindness and humility at work:

Listen more than you talk.
You don’t need to have the loudest voice to have the strongest impact. 
Listening builds connection and earns respect.

Give credit - generously.
Acknowledging others’ work doesn’t diminish your own. 
It multiplies the trust and energy in your team.

Keep learning.
The moment you think you’ve “arrived,” you stop growing. 
Stay curious, stay open, and never let success make you unapproachable.

Kind people build strong teams.
Strong teams create big results.

Top Ecommerce Email Marketer | $200M+ Generated via Email

If your job costs you your peace,
it’s too expensive.

You deserve a job that lets you sleep peacefully at night -
not one that keeps you awake questioning your worth, your future, or your sanity.

A healthy career doesn’t rely on:

 ❌ burnout
 ❌ constant anxiety
 ❌ toxic expectations

A healthy career is built on:

 ✔️ clear boundaries
 ✔️ supportive leadership
 ✔️ meaningful work
 ✔️ respect for your time and well-being

Your job should challenge you - not drain you.

It should grow you - not break you.

And it should fit into your life, not become your life.

If your work steals your peace, it’s costing you more than it pays.

Reality:
A small, ordinary action.

LinkedIn:
A “high-impact initiative” with “key learnings” and “next steps.”

Clear communication beats inflated language.
Strong professionals don’t need to oversell normal work.

Say what you did.
Say why it mattered.
Move on.

Clarity builds trust faster than buzzwords.

Image credit: TheSecretAcct on Twitter/X

Funny how your brain has unlimited energy
for worst-case scenarios.

It can write entire disaster scripts at 3 a.m.
With dialogue.
With consequences.
With a soundtrack.

But ask it to imagine things going well
and suddenly it needs evidence, references, and a peer review.

That’s not intuition.
That’s anxiety pretending to be preparation.

You don’t need to stop overthinking.
You just need to stop letting it bully you into pessimism only.

If your mind insists on spiraling,
at least make it spiral in both directions.

Same brain.
Different hypothesis.

Image credit: bywiseword

It’s not about collecting business cards or follower counts.

It’s about building bridges with people who get it - who challenge you, inspire you, and open doors you didn’t know existed.

The right network doesn’t just grow your career - it expands your mindset, your confidence, and your opportunities.

Here are 12 ways to build powerful, authentic connections:

1️⃣ Lead with curiosity. Ask, don’t pitch. People love being seen and heard.

2️⃣ Add value first. Share insights, introductions, or encouragement before asking for anything.

3️⃣ Show up consistently. Comment, engage, and participate where your industry hangs out.

4️⃣ Find your communities. Join professional groups, Slack channels, or niche forums.

5️⃣ Attend events strategically. Go where your next mentor, collaborator, or client might actually be.

6️⃣ Follow up. A short, thoughtful message can turn a conversation into a relationship.

7️⃣ Be generous with your expertise. Give more than you take - it builds reputation fast.

8️⃣ Don’t chase status. The best opportunities often come from peers, not big titles.

9️⃣ Stay authentic. Pretending to be someone you’re not is the fastest way to disconnect.

1️⃣0️⃣ Keep it human. Share stories, not sales pitches.

1️⃣1️⃣ Support others publicly. Celebrate others’ wins - it builds goodwill that lasts.

1️⃣2️⃣ Play the long game. Relationships compound like interest; nurture them with time.

The truth? You’re one conversation away from a completely different path.

Image credit: Tim Stoddart

The advice I wish I could’ve given myself 8 years ago:

Create a culture people never want to leave.

Yes, you can’t keep everyone with a 0% turnover rate. 
Let’s face it.

But what you can do is build an environment people don’t want to walk away from.

Build a culture that makes employees:

↳ Recommend it to their friends as the dream job, 
↳ Stay, even if the paycheck isn't perfect yet, 
↳ Come back when the conditions are right.

Think about it:

👉 A competitive paycheck might keep someone for a while, 
But a toxic culture will drive them away for good.

👉 You can offer all the perks, but if the culture is unhealthy, 
Nothing will make your best people stick around.

People stay where they feel valued.

It’s not just about the money—it’s about creating a workplace 
that makes people excited to show up every day.

♻️ Share this post with your network if you agree. 

 Credit: Victoria Repa ( go follow her )

Small habit.
Big impact.

The way you speak to yourself
every morning
becomes your baseline.

Speak growth.
Speak calm.
Speak possibility.

It adds up.

Image credit: Wordofwise_ on Twitter/X

“Hire the people that…”

Interesting how the list skips:
– constant availability
– performative hustle
– being the loudest voice
– working 24/7 for optics

Great teams grow from maturity, not heroics.
From people who communicate clearly, take ownership, and move in sync.

Ego slows teams down.
Trust speeds them up.
Psychological safety keeps the work moving.

Hire for reliability and collaboration first.
Everything else gets easier after that.

“It wasn’t a waste of time if you learned something.”

That’s easy to agree with in theory.
Harder when the lesson came with lost money, bruised confidence, or a year you won’t get back.

Still - experience has a way of paying later.

It sharpens your instincts.
It changes what you tolerate.
It shortens the gap between seeing a red flag and acting on it.

Not every chapter produces visible wins.
Some exist to quietly upgrade your judgment.

And that upgrade shows up in every decision after.

Nobody talks about this part enough.

You can do it tired.
You can do it frustrated.
You can do it unsure.

You just can’t do it if you quit.

Keep going.


Image credit: Dearme2_ on Twitter/X

Here’s a hard truth most people avoid:

If you’re not making mistakes, you’re not moving forward.

I learned this the slow way.

Early on, I tried to get everything right.
Perfect plan.
Perfect timing.
Perfect execution.

And progress?
Basically stalled.

Things only changed when I gave myself permission to be wrong.

To test ideas that might flop.
To ship work that wasn’t perfect.
To learn out loud instead of waiting in silence.

Mistakes aren’t failure.
They’re feedback.

The people doing the most interesting work
aren’t avoiding mistakes.

They’re just willing to make them faster.

Safe paths feel good.
But they don’t teach much.

Growth always comes with friction.
That’s the price of trying something new.

Image credit: Tomas Gorny

Marketing is great they said…


P.S. If you write emails and you’re looking for inspiration, check out:

inboox.ai

10 years of rejection.

That's how long Squid Game's creator spent pitching his script.

Studio after studio said no.
Too dark. Too violent. Won't work.

Then Netflix took a chance.

28 days later, it became their most-watched show in history.

A decade of "no" turned into a $900M yes.

Most people quit after a few rejections.
They assume the silence means the idea is bad.

But rejection isn't a verdict.
It's just timing.

The right opportunity doesn't always show up first.
Sometimes it shows up tenth. Or hundredth.

If you're getting rejected right now, consider this:

You might not be wrong.
You might just be early.

Keep going.


Image Credit: Amy Sussman/WireImage; Noh Juhan/Netflix

How to survive marketing in 2026.

Open your laptop.
Check Slack.
Three notifications in…

…and you already feel behind.

Sound familiar?

In 2026, “digital marketer” doesn’t mean one role anymore.
It means the entire agency in one tab.

Copywriter.
Strategist.
Videographer.
Social media manager.
Designer.
Editor.
Analyst.

All before lunch.

From experience, the problem isn’t a lack of skill.
It’s the expectation that one person can do everything at once and do it well.

Burnout doesn’t come from hard work.
It comes from an impossible scope.

The marketers who survive aren’t the busiest.
They’re the ones who set boundaries, prioritize ruthlessly, and stop trying to be great at everything every day.

Because marketing isn’t about doing more.
It’s about doing the right things consistently.

Agree?

Most marketers track a ton of metrics.

Very few know which ones actually matter.

Here are 7 worth paying attention to, plus how to improve each one:

(bookmark this)

Our email domains kept getting blacklisted at my agency.

Everyone assumed we were sending too aggressively.

After diving into the data, we found the real issue.

18% bounce rate.
From a "verified" list.

We had bad data.

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗵𝗶𝗱𝗱𝗲𝗻 𝗰𝗼𝘀𝘁𝘀 𝗻𝗼𝗯𝗼𝗱𝘆 𝘁𝗮𝗹𝗸𝘀 𝗮𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁:

Deals lost during 2-3 weeks of rebuilding.
Hours spent verifying and cleaning lists.
Teams questioning their skills when it's not their fault.
Buying new domains every month.

We thought this was just how outbound worked.

Then I saw a friend's company sending thousands of emails each week.
Same domains. Month after month.
Strong deliverability maintained.

They were using Prospeo.io's data.

SMTP handshakes verify emails before you send.
BounceBan removes risky addresses automatically.
Weekly updates catch job changes that kill domains.

After testing several providers, Prospeo consistently delivered the cleanest data.

Our domains have been going steady for months now.
Data prep time cut by 80%.
Bounce rates dropped from 18% to under 2%.

Clean data isn't just about deliverability.
It's about keeping your team confident and productive.

What hidden costs is bad data creating at your agency?

Brand partnership • Top Ecommerce Email Marketer | $200M+ Generated via Email

6 Copywriting Techniques You Can Leverage for Your Sales Pages:

No alternative text description for this image

January hits different for ecommerce founders.

Sales slow down. Costs don't.

You're staring at:
- Depleted inventory
- Q1 expenses stacking up
- Ad costs that won't wait
- Cash tied up in last quarter's orders

The revenue will come. But the bills are here now.

This is the ecommerce cash flow trap.

Most founders either:
→ Wait it out and lose momentum
→ Take on debt with rigid terms
→ Give up equity way too early

That's where Wayflyer comes in.

Capital in 24-48 hours. Non-dilutive. Flexible repayment based on your actual sales.

No giving up ownership. No waiting weeks for bank approvals.

You restock. You scale Q1 ads. You keep the momentum going.

$6B+ already deployed to brands like yours.

If your cash flow is playing catch-up, get your offer today: 

https://lnkd.in/gJsgPrrm


#WayflyerSponsor

I used to think GTM complexity was just part of the job.

Multiple tools. Manual handoffs. Workflows that took hours to build and days to fix.

Last week I tested Apollo's AI Assistant on something different: workflow creation.

Instead of clicking through menus and configuring triggers manually, I just described what I wanted in plain English.

The AI built the multi-step workflow in minutes.

What used to require:
→ A GTM engineer
→ Multiple tools stitched together
→ Hours of setup and testing

Now happens in a single conversation.

Same thing with building prospect lists, creating sequences, or analyzing campaign performance. Describe what you need. The AI handles the execution.

Most teams are still doing GTM the old way. Clicking through settings, connecting triggers, testing each step manually.

Meanwhile, the fastest operators are just talking to the AI.

GTM shouldn't require an engineering degree.
It should require clear thinking and the right tools.

Join the beta waitlist:

https://lnkd.in/gW2ZeEUb

#ApolloAIAssistant #ApolloPartner

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Chase Dimond

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The Battle

Ferenc Fekete

Chase Dimond

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Ferenc Fekete's LinkedIn Performance

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Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScoreFerenc Fekete's LinkedIn Performance