Get your first customers

The scrappy, unscalable work of going from zero to your first users.

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

  1. Lemkin's point is blunt and useful: most of the extra revenue sitting in your pipeline right now comes from leads that were... SaaStr (Jason Lemkin) Article How to Close More Revenue Today, With the Leads You Already Have Jason Lemkin
  2. Iannarino argues that honoring even small commitments you made on the call, like sending that one document you promised, is... The Sales Blog (Anthony Iannarino) Essay Keeping Commitments: Why Follow Up and Follow Through Make or Break Opportunities Anthony Iannarino
  3. Short, practical piece on formatting the same-day recap so a busy buyer actually reads it: next steps up top, specific... Superhuman Article Meeting Recap Email Example: 3 Steps to Writing Follow-Ups That Actually Get Read Superhuman
  4. Ramit Sethi built a business partly on emails from strangers that got answered, and this guide is his own breakdown of what... Ramit Sethi, I Will Teach You To Be Rich Essay The Ultimate Guide to Email Copywriting Ramit Sethi, I Will Teach You To Be Rich
  5. Copyhackers writes for people who make a living from words converting, and this piece is focused tightly on the mechanics of... Copyhackers Article 4 Tips to Get Your Cold Emails Opened Copyhackers
  6. Your subject line decides whether the rest of your email gets read at all, and this piece is entirely dedicated to getting that... Demand Curve Article Cold Email Subject Line Do's and Don'ts Demand Curve
  7. This is a founder's own account of one specific cold email that worked, with the reasoning behind each choice she made, rather... Allie Janoch (Medium) Essay How I Turned a Cold Email Into a $2.5M Seed Round Allie Janoch (Medium)
  8. Jason Lemkin has seen thousands of founder emails as an investor himself, and this piece is written from that side of the... SaaStr Article Dear SaaStr: How Do I Write a Great Cold Email To VCs? Jason Lemkin
  9. Intercom's founders describe sending around a hundred highly personal emails a day in their earliest days, each one custom... Intercom Blog Essay How Intercom Got Our First Customers Intercom Blog
  10. Graham draws a sharp line between persistence and mere obstinacy: the persistent stay flexible on method while locked onto the... paulgraham.com Essay The Right Kind of Stubborn Paul Graham
  11. This is the actual data behind the "follow up more than you think" advice: only 8.5% of cold emails get a reply on their own,... Backlinko Article We Analyzed 12 Million Outreach Emails: Here's What We Learned Backlinko (with Pitchbox)
  12. A practical, no-nonsense breakdown of the tradeoff between too few follow-ups (leaving replies on the table) and too many... lemlist Article How Many Cold Email Follow-Ups Should You Send to Increase Your Replies? lemlist
  13. This lays out an actual day-by-day schedule for spacing your follow-ups, which is the part most advice skips in favor of just... GrowthList Article Cold Email Follow Up Timing: Best Schedule GrowthList
  14. A compact stat sheet built from Woodpecker's own send data across many campaigns, showing that adding even one follow-up lifts... Woodpecker Article These Stats Prove The Importance of Follow-up Emails Margaret Sikora
  15. A clear-headed synthesis of the various industry numbers (the classic 80/5 stat that 80% of sales need about five touches, plus... Nutshell Article How Many Follow-Up Emails Should You Send? Nutshell
  16. Written specifically to answer this question, pulling together response-rate curves across follow-up counts so you can see... Instantly Article How Many Times Should You Really Follow Up with a Prospect? Instantly
  17. Barry documents, with real numbers, how he grew ConvertKit through direct outreach and relentless follow-up rather than a... nathanbarry.com Essay Direct Sales for Bootstrapped SaaS Startups: from $1,300 to $725,000 MRR Nathan Barry
  18. A real, specific account of the actual cold email that got a company its first paying customers before it even had a name or a... Indie Hackers Thread The cold email that started a $100M/yr company Indie Hackers
  19. A direct, practical comparison of the two channels this exact question is about, including what each is better suited for and... Cleverly Article Cold Email vs. LinkedIn Outreach: What Gets Better Results? Cleverly
  20. Merge's founders sent hundreds of cold emails over six months, not to pitch but to understand who actually had the integrations... First Round Review Article Merge's Path to Product-Market Fit: The Importance of Founder-led Sales First Round Review
  21. Pete Kazanjy, who has built and scaled multiple B2B sales orgs, gives a founder-focused breakdown of how to get specific enough... Lenny's Podcast Article · 10 min read Defining your ideal customer profile: Pete Kazanjy's perspective Pete Kazanjy
  22. A solo founder documents exactly how cold email grew their product to real revenue over six months, including what changed in... Indie Hackers Thread · 5 min read The untapped power of cold email, your secret weapon Indie Hackers community
  23. Close is a sales CRM built by working sales leaders, and this piece (reviewed by co-founder Steli Efti) draws the line between... Close Article 17 Best Cold Email Subject Lines for Higher Open Rates Kimberlee Meier
  24. Braun sells cold email coaching for a living and this is his most-shared list, twenty-eight real subject lines with the... LinkedIn (Josh Braun) Thread 28 Cold Email Subject Lines That Get Opened Josh Braun

Show the next 24

The questions

Getting your first 10 customers 18

Do things that don't scale to get to ten.

How do I actually get my first 10 customers when nobody has heard of me? 19 → Isn't doing things that don't scale a waste of time, shouldn't I automate from day one? 17 → Where do I find the very first people to even talk to about my product? 18 → Should I charge my very first customers or give it away free to get traction? 18 → How did real successful startups actually land their first customers? 20 → All 18 questions in Getting your first 10 customers →
Launching (again and again) 18

A launch is a tactic you repeat, not an event.

When is my product 'ready' to launch? 19 → My launch flopped and nobody cared, did I mess it up? 20 → How do I actually launch on Product Hunt and not embarrass myself? 15 → What's the best channel to launch on, Product Hunt, Reddit, Hacker News, or LinkedIn? 17 → How do I build up an audience before I launch so it's not just crickets? 18 → All 18 questions in Launching (again and again) →
Founder-led sales 18

Nobody sells your product better than you, yet.

I'm a technical founder and I hate selling, do I really have to do sales myself? 18 → How do I run a sales call without sounding like a pushy salesperson? 15 → How do I handle objections and prospects who go silent on me? 17 → When do I know it's time to hire a salesperson instead of doing it myself? 19 → What sales process should I follow if I've never sold anything before? 17 → All 18 questions in Founder-led sales →
Cold outreach & email 18

Start conversations with strangers who need you.

How do I write a cold email that people actually reply to? 19 → How many times should I follow up before giving up on a cold prospect? 18 → Cold email or cold LinkedIn/DM, what works better for reaching first customers? 19 → Is cold outreach even worth it, or is it just spam that hurts my brand? 19 → How do I build a targeted list of the right people to cold email? 18 → All 18 questions in Cold outreach & email →
Distribution & channel strategy 18

The channel is the strategy.

How do I figure out which distribution channel is right for my startup? 2 → Why does everyone say 'distribution is more important than product'? 2 → What are the actual distribution channels I can choose from? 1 → Should I focus on one channel or spread across many? 2 → How do the fastest-growing B2B companies find and scale their distribution? 2 → All 18 questions in Distribution & channel strategy →
eChai Partner Brands The partnership →