Launch & get your first customers

Build an audience, open the doors, and grind out your first hundred orders.

What founders use for launch & get your first customers, ranked by how many answers lean on it.

  1. A founder-voice, long-form account of how Wakefit's early demand testing and customer conversations actually happened, useful... Founder Thesis Podcast Dreaming with Resilience: Ankit Garg's Journey Building Wakefit into India's ₹1100 Cr Home Solutions Giant Founder Thesis In 4 answers
  2. A founder who scaled from a small mobile-accessories brand to a bootstrapped giant, talking about what actually worked in the... The Neon Show Podcast India's First Rs 1,000 Cr D2C Brand, Noise, That's Completely Bootstrapped Siddhartha Ahluwalia In 3 answers
  3. A long-running weekly podcast of founder and operator interviews across the DTC space, useful for hearing how other founders... Simplecast Podcast DTC POD: How The Best Brands Are Built Simplecast In 2 answers

The questions

Pre-launch & building an audience 6

Have people waiting before you open the doors.

How do I build an audience before I even have a product ready to sell? 4 → Should I collect free email signups or charge a small deposit for my waitlist? 3 → How many people do I actually need on my waitlist before I launch in India? 3 → What's the fastest way to start a WhatsApp/Instagram following before I even have inventory? 3 → Which one pre-launch channel should I actually focus on instead of trying everything at once? 3 → All 6 questions in Pre-launch & building an audience →
Your first 100 orders 6

The unglamorous moves that get you to 100.

Where do my first 100 orders actually come from if I have no brand yet? 3 → Is it worth personally delivering or calling my first customers instead of just shipping and moving on? 3 → I have zero following and almost no ad budget - how do I still get to 100 orders? 3 → Which single channel should I put all my energy into for the first 100 orders? 3 → How do I know if my first 100 orders actually mean I have product-market fit, or if I just got lucky? 3 → All 6 questions in Your first 100 orders →
Launch strategy & drops 6

Launch like it's a tactic you repeat, not an event.

What exactly is a 'drop' and should my brand even bother with limited drops? 3 → How do I plan a launch day so I don't run out of stock or crash my own site? 3 → Should I do one big Day-1 launch or roll the product out in phases? 3 → What can a small Indian brand actually learn from Supreme and boAt's launch playbooks? 4 → What's the right cadence for repeat drops - weekly, monthly, or seasonal? 3 → All 6 questions in Launch strategy & drops →
Influencer & UGC seeding 6

Get real people posting your product early.

What exactly is influencer/UGC seeding, and how is it different from paying for a sponsored post? 3 → How many creators should I seed to for a first wave, and what should I budget? 3 → How do I actually run my first product-seeding campaign, step by step? 3 → How do I find creators to seed to before I can afford Kofluence or a UGC platform? 3 → What can I learn from how Mamaearth used influencers and word-of-mouth before it had a big budget? 3 → All 6 questions in Influencer & UGC seeding →
Founder-led selling & community 6

In the early days, you are the brand.

Should I make myself the face of the brand, or keep the brand separate from my personal identity? 3 → Is it actually worth me personally replying to every DM and WhatsApp message in the early days? 2 → What does 'founder-led selling' actually look like day to day in the first few months? 3 → Is it worth me personally showing up in my brand's WhatsApp group or Instagram comments, or should I hand that off early? 3 → At what point do I need to stop being the one doing all the selling myself? 3 → All 6 questions in Founder-led selling & community →
eChai Partner Brands The partnership →