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. This nails the discipline behind the highlight reel: with prospects you share momentum factually without handing over what they... Lenny's Newsletter Article · 20 min read Raising a seed round 101 Lenny Rachitsky with First Round
  2. Bentinck ran a talent investor and watched founders wave signed LOIs as proof, then watched those same customers walk. Her... Entrepreneurs First Essay · 7 min read The Letter of Intent Fallacy Alice Bentinck
  3. A founder-friendly crash course on planning and running discovery interviews, with tactics from researchers at Zoom, Zapier,... First Round Review Article · 20 min read A UX Research Crash Course for Founders Jane Davis
  4. Steve Blank coined get out of the building, and this is a clean primer on why talking to customers is a search for facts your... Kauffman Entrepreneurs (Steve Blank) Article · 10 min read Getting Out of the Building: Customer Development Steve Blank
  5. The qualitative half of the answer, told through founders describing the moment things flipped: inbound you cannot keep up... Lenny's Newsletter Article · ~2,000 words What it feels like when you've found product-market fit Lenny Rachitsky
  6. This piece makes a sharp point, if traction is weak you are probably not a ten percent tweak away but a two hundred percent... First Round Review Article · ~15 min read The Pivot to Product-Market Fit First Round Review
  7. Entering an unfamiliar industry means you cannot see the walls and dead ends that veterans already know. Dixon explains that a... cdixon.org Essay · short read The Idea Maze Chris Dixon
  8. Lenny interviewed dozens of people who built Airbnb, DoorDash, Thumbtack, Etsy, and Uber, then distilled how they actually got... Lenny's Newsletter Article · ~25 min read How to Kickstart and Scale a Marketplace Business (Part 1) Lenny Rachitsky
  9. Once you decide supply is the harder side to get, this piece is the tactical playbook for signing up those first suppliers by... Lenny's Newsletter Article · ~25 min read How to Kickstart and Scale a Marketplace Business (Part 3): Growing Initial Supply Lenny Rachitsky
  10. A short, clear framing of the difference between a nice to have and a must have. It helps you honestly ask whether people would... Forbes Article · ~7 min read Is Your Startup Building a Vitamin or a Painkiller? George Deeb
  11. Written by the person who grew Superhuman's waitlist past half a million, so it is candid about what a big number does and does... Growth by Gaurav (Substack) Essay The Waitlist Delusion Gaurav Vohra
  12. This is the full, concrete story of how Airbnb got off zero, from the Craigslist cross-posting hack to poaching Craigslist... First 1000 Article · ~12 min read How Airbnb Got Its First 1,000 Customers Ali Abouelatta
  13. The full Airbnb origin story, including the moment the founders flew to New York to photograph listings themselves because bad... Product Habits Article · 20 min read How Two Designers Created Airbnb and Turned It Into a Billion-Dollar Company Hiten Shah
  14. A short explainer of the Stripe tactic Paul Graham named after the Collison brothers: instead of emailing a signup link, they... This is KP Article · 8 min read The Collison Installation KP
  15. A method for finding exactly where your customers already gather online, the forums, subreddits, and groups where they post... Stacking the Bricks Article · ~12 min read How to Find Your Audience's Online Watering Holes Alex Hillman
  16. A compact guide to interviewing around jobs, pains, and gains without leading the witness. It keeps you from talking about your... Strategyzer Article · ~6 min read A Quick Guide to Asking Good Customer Questions Strategyzer
  17. A blunt, founder-written case for charging early customers instead of giving the product away. Shah walks through exactly what... OnStartups (Dharmesh Shah) Article Giving Your Software Away For Free (Startup Reality Distortion Effect #1) Dharmesh Shah
  18. A curated set of pricing deep dives from operators who have set prices at real companies. This is the right next step once you... First Round Review Article Our 6 Must Reads on Pricing a Product First Round Review
  19. A short, balanced look at whether to charge alpha and early customers, with founders on both sides. The useful conclusion is a... Fast Company Article To Charge or Not to Charge: That's the Question for These Startups Fast Company
  20. A founder's story of clinging to free, then flipping to paid and reaching real revenue. It is concrete and relatable if you are... Indie Hackers Article From Refusing to Charge for His Products to Making $500k+ ARR Indie Hackers
  21. A clear breakdown of incentive choices (free trial, discount, pilot fee) for getting first traction without simply giving the... Mercury Article Free Trials vs. Discounts: Choosing the Right Startup Incentive Mercury
  22. A two time unicorn founder's answer to the exact fear behind giving it away: the belief that a low or zero price wins you... A Smart Bear Article Should I Price My Product Low? Jason Cohen
  23. An entire newsletter dedicated to reverse engineering how companies like Uber, DoorDash, and Spotify got their first thousand... Ali Abouelatta (First 1000 newsletter) Article · Newsletter archive, 10 min per issue First 1000 Ali Abouelatta
  24. This is the Figma half of your short answer, told with the CEO's own account. Field cold emailed designers he admired and... Fortune Article · 5 min read How Dylan Field cold-emailed his heroes to build Figma Fortune

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 →