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 fill-in-the-blanks worksheet for documenting why your cold outreach counts as a legitimate interest, before a regulator or an... UK Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) Tool Legitimate Interests Assessment (LIA) Template UK Information Commissioner's Office (ICO)
  2. A one-page cheat sheet you can keep open while you write, built to stop you from reaching for the generic first line under... Josh Braun Template · 1 page Cold Email First Sentence Cheat Sheet Josh Braun
  3. Lavender scores your draft in real time and flags the lines that read as generic, which is a useful outside check on whether... Lavender Tool Lavender Lavender
  4. Joanna Wiebe gives you five real cold email structures for different situations, pitching a service, quoting someone's own... Copyhackers Template · 12 min read How to Write a Cold Email: 5 Templates from a Pro Copywriter Joanna Wiebe
  5. This is where you see, in Gmail's own words, how Gmail actually sees your domain: spam rate, IP and domain reputation,... Google Tool Google Postmaster Tools Google
  6. A single search bar to look up your SPF, DKIM, DMARC, MX, and PTR records, plus a blacklist check across dozens of blocklists.... MxToolbox Tool MxToolbox SuperTool MxToolbox
  7. A straightforward alternative to Hunter that independent tests rate as more accurate on harder to find addresses. Useful as a... VoilaNorbert Tool VoilaNorbert VoilaNorbert
  8. This is the plain guess at the company's email pattern from our answer, made mechanical. Feed it a name and domain and it... Mailmeteor Tool Email Permutator Mailmeteor
  9. This is the verification step our answer insists on. Paste in a guessed or found address and it tells you whether the inbox is... NeverBounce Tool Email Verifier NeverBounce
  10. A large contact database that's worth trying when Hunter or VoilaNorbert come back empty, since it draws on a different index... RocketReach Tool RocketReach RocketReach
  11. Once you have a verified address, these are ready to adapt templates from a CRM built specifically for small sales teams,... Close Template · 10 minute read 15 Best Cold Email Templates That Actually Get Replies Steli Efti
  12. This gives you the actual words to use once you decide to ask happy customers for referrals, timed to the moment right after a... HubSpot Template How to ask for a referral from a client (+ best email templates) HubSpot
  13. Warm channels run on proof, and this is the simplest tool for collecting video and text testimonials from customers without... Testimonial.to Tool Testimonial.to Testimonial.to
  14. Use these as a starting structure, not a script to copy and paste to a thousand people, since that second use is exactly the... HubSpot Template · 15 min read 22 Best B2B Cold Email Templates to Get Your Leads' Attention HubSpot

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 →