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. A one-page tool for writing down what you have learned about a customer's jobs, pains, and gains, then checking whether your... Strategyzer Tool · template The Value Proposition Canvas Strategyzer
  2. A ready made four question survey for finding the price range your customers see as fair, including the point where "too cheap"... Contentsquare Template Van Westendorp Price Sensitivity Survey Template Contentsquare
  3. Talking to prospects only pays off if you capture what you hear in a way you can act on. This free Google Doc gives you a... Kromatic Template · Google Doc template Customer Discovery Note-Taking Template Kromatic
  4. A ready made structure for running and logging customer interviews the Mom Test way, so your manual research is captured... Notion Marketplace (GrowthHacking.World) Template · Notion template Problem-Solution Navigator: A Mom Test Based Interview Template GrowthHacking.World
  5. If your customers run their business on WhatsApp, being reachable there yourself is the point. The free Business app gives you... Meta / WhatsApp (Google Play) Tool · Free app WhatsApp Business app WhatsApp
  6. Free templates including the Positioning Canvas and a messaging document you can fill in for your own product. They turn the... aprildunford.com Template · Downloadable April Dunford Positioning Templates April Dunford
  7. A ready question bank organized by interview stage, so you walk into a customer conversation with real questions instead of... Perspective AI Template 60 Customer Discovery Questions (Mom Test-Approved) Perspective AI
  8. Your short answer says give people a simple way to pay, and for Indian founders this is one of the fastest: create a payment... Razorpay Tool Razorpay Payment Links Razorpay
  9. A clear, jargon free explainer of the problem plus practical seeding strategies (single side focus, faking supply,... Sharetribe Marketplace Glossary Tool · 10 min read What Is the Chicken and Egg Problem in Marketplaces? Sharetribe
  10. Airtable is the friendly database that sits under most no-code stacks, and it is where many founders quietly run the first... Airtable (airtable.com) Tool Airtable Airtable (airtable.com)
  11. A fast way to check whether a screen reads clearly in the first impression, which is often where clunky starts. Show people a... Five Second Test (Lyssna) Tool Five Second Test Five Second Test (Lyssna)
  12. If launching is a repeated habit rather than one event, you need a low-stakes place to keep launching, and Product Hunt is the... Product Hunt Tool · Web platform Product Hunt Product Hunt
  13. A crisp, opinionated set of principles for building software: work in cycles, say no to busy work, keep momentum, and let the... Linear Tool · Reference site Linear Method: Practices for building Linear
  14. A crowdsourced list of over a hundred directories and communities where you can list or relaunch a product, useful as a... Indie Hackers Template Relaunch like a pro: 100+ places to launch, relaunch, and list your product Indie Hackers community
  15. This compact guide gives you rules for writing plain, persuasive prose that you can apply the same afternoon: sentence length,... Julian Shapiro Course Writing Well Julian Shapiro
  16. This is a practical swipe file for the one line that decides whether anyone reads your launch post at all, built around... Copyhackers Template 65 Headline Formulas Copyhackers
  17. Buffer's live public hub, real revenue, real decisions, real posts, is a working example of what a company sounds like when it... Buffer Tool Buffer Open Buffer
  18. This gives you the actual email skeletons, teaser, launch day, update, follow-up, that map directly onto the five-beat sequence... HubSpot Blog Template · 10 min read How to Create a Product Launch Email [Outlines + Templates] HubSpot
  19. Ship is a landing page and waitlist tool built specifically for the pre-launch teaser stage of a campaign like the one in the... Product Hunt Tool Ship by Product Hunt: A toolkit for makers to ship awesome products Product Hunt
  20. Justin Jackson built this course specifically for technical founders who are good at shipping but go quiet on marketing right... justinjackson.ca Course · self-paced course Marketing for Developers Justin Jackson
  21. Our answer's second half is about treating sales as a repeatable pipeline, not one-off calls, and that needs somewhere to write... HubSpot Tool HubSpot Pipeline Management HubSpot
  22. When you need the actual words for the same-day recap email, this gives you five ready structures for different types of calls,... HubSpot Template · 8 min read 5 Recap Email Templates to Use After Connect, Discovery, and Demo Calls HubSpot
  23. Once you find your champion, the deal usually stalls on a security questionnaire, and do you have a SOC 2 report is often the... Vanta Tool An actionable guide to SOC 2 compliance for startups Vanta
  24. If you are registered as an MSME and a customer sits on your invoice past 45 days, this government portal is the actual legal... Ministry of MSME, Government of India Tool MSME SAMADHAAN - Delayed Payment Monitoring System Ministry of MSME, Government of India

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 →