Get your first 100 orders

The scrappy, unscalable work of going from zero to a hundred paying customers.

5 steps, 30 questions, laid out in the order you'll hit them

Each step is a topic with the real questions D2C founders ask; open whichever one you're stuck on for the answer and the resources on it.

1. 1
   Pre-launch & building an audience

   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 →
2. 2
   Launch strategy & drops

   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 →
3. 3
   Your first 100 orders

   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 →
4. 4
   Influencer & UGC seeding

   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 →
5. 5
   Content & social media

   Show up daily so the ad has somewhere to land.

   Should I be on Instagram, YouTube Shorts, and Pinterest, or just pick one? Where do I actually put my limited time? 4 → I'm a team of two - what should I actually be posting every week, and how do I build a system so it doesn't fall apart after month one? 4 → Should I be paying for polished brand shoots or just running UGC campaigns - what actually converts for a D2C brand? 3 → How do I get more mileage out of one shoot instead of creating from scratch for every platform? 4 → Should I, the founder, be on camera building a personal brand, or should that be the brand account's job? 4 → All 6 questions in Content & social media →