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. The fastest way to stand up a fake-door landing page. Build a one-page site in an afternoon, add an email capture, and measure... carrd.co Tool Carrd carrd.co In 5 answers
  2. Before any of your outreach copy matters, you need the right person's actual email, and Hunter is the most widely used,... Hunter.io Tool Hunter (Email Finder and Verifier) Hunter In 4 answers
  3. The free tool for running the how-would-you-feel-without-this survey that underpins the Superhuman method, giving you a... Sean Ellis and GoPractice Tool · Free tool Product/Market Fit Survey Sean Ellis In 3 answers
  4. The one thing you cannot outsource is staying on top of your first conversations, and this is a free CRM that lives inside... streak.com Tool Streak CRM for Gmail Streak In 3 answers
  5. A short, practical guide you can lift straight into your own process: how many times to follow up, what to say at each touch,... Close Template The Follow Up Formula Steli Efti In 3 answers
  6. Sethi has spent years publicly refining cold outreach scripts and testing subject lines with real recipients, and this collects... Ramit Sethi Template 50 Proven Email Scripts Ramit Sethi In 3 answers
  7. When you have a name and a company but no address, Hunter is the default first stop: type the person and the domain, and it... hunter.io Tool Hunter Email Finder Hunter In 2 answers
  8. When you need to reach the active or influential people in your niche cold, this helps you build a targeted list and find their... Apollo.io Tool Apollo.io Apollo.io In 2 answers
  9. Your short answer says to track outreach like a funnel, and this gives you a free spreadsheet to do it. Log every contact as... Close.com Template · Downloadable templates Sales Pipeline Templates (Excel and Google Sheets) Close.com In 2 answers
  10. The official rules for posting to Hacker News's Show HN section, worth reading before you try this channel again: it tells you... Hacker News Tool Show HN Guidelines Y Combinator In 2 answers
  11. A short, free checklist you can hold next to your draft while writing your first cold email, not just the subject line but the... Josh Braun Template 15 Cold Email Copywriting Principles Josh Braun In 2 answers
  12. Before you send a single cold email to a real prospect, send one to this tool. It gives you a spam score out of 10, checks your... mail-tester.com Tool Mail Tester mail-tester.com In 2 answers
  13. The deepest no-code stack, database, workflows, and custom UI, for building genuinely complex web apps and marketplaces without... bubble.io Tool · platform Bubble, No-Code Full-Stack App Builder Bubble
  14. This is a ready-to-run interview script written for the exact moment you have an idea but nothing to show, so a non-technical... Deploy Empathy Template · One page, full script Customer Interview Script: Discovery Phase (before you've built anything) Michele Hansen (Deploy Empathy)
  15. PostHog gives you product analytics and session replay in one place, so you can see both what people did (events, funnels) and... posthog.com Tool PostHog PostHog
  16. If you just want to know how many people showed up and how long they stayed, without slowing your page or bolting on a cookie... plausible.io Tool Plausible Analytics Plausible Insights
  17. If you cannot yet hear which of your sentences read as translated, this free tool shows you. Paste your draft and it highlights... Hemingway App Tool · Free web version, paid desktop app Hemingway Editor Hemingway App
  18. If you do decide a waitlist earns its place, this is a clean, concrete way to run one well without building it yourself: a... LaunchList Tool LaunchList: Viral Pre-Launch Waitlist Software with Referrals LaunchList
  19. Clay is the tool most outbound teams reach for when they want research-driven personalization instead of name placeholders. It... Clay Tool Clay Clay Labs, Inc.
  20. Sometimes your emails are not ignored, they never reach the inbox, and no amount of copy editing fixes a deliverability... instantly.ai Tool · Web app Instantly Cold Email Outreach and Deliverability Instantly
  21. If you decide to run WhatsApp at any real scale, you cannot do it from the plain WhatsApp Business app: you need a... AiSensy Tool · Free plan, paid tiers from about 1,395 rupees per month AiSensy: WhatsApp Business API Platform AiSensy Communications Private Limited
  22. If you are asking whether SEO is still worth it, start by learning what good SEO in 2026 actually looks like, and this free... Ahrefs (YouTube) Course · ~2 hours across a short video series SEO Course for Beginners (by Ahrefs) Sam Oh (Ahrefs)
  23. The only honest way to answer "is SEO working" is to look at real search data, and Google Search Console is the free,... Google Tool · Free web tool Google Search Console Google
  24. When you need a one-time cash injection without giving up equity, this is an actual India-based platform you can approach,... Recur Club Tool · Platform, application-based Recur Club (revenue-based financing and debt for Indian founders) Recur Club

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 →