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. Video · Talk, roughly 30 to 45 minutes Partner Ecosystems: Trends, Predictions and Forecast, with Jay McBain Jay McBain
  2. Video How to Test Facebook Ads Creatives at Every Budget Dara Denney
  3. Video Startup Pricing 101 Kevin Hale
  4. Video · About 30 minutes How to Get Users and Grow Gustaf Alstromer
  5. YC's David Lieb walks through cohort retention: watching each week's new users and asking how many actually come back. For a... Y Combinator Startup School Video · ~20 min How To Improve Cohort Retention David Lieb
  6. Video · ~50 min How to Evaluate Startup Ideas Kevin Hale, Y Combinator
  7. YC partners who have watched thousands of founders unpack what the essay looks like in practice, with real examples from... Y Combinator Video · 26 min YC's Group Partners Discuss Doing Things That Don't Scale Y Combinator Group Partners
  8. Video · ~20 min Solving the Chicken or Egg Problem James Currier
  9. Video · ~45 min Building Product, Talking to Users, and Growing (How to Start a Startup, Lecture 4) Adora Cheung
  10. Video · 48 min How to Build Products Users Love Kevin Hale
  11. Video · 12 min Superhuman's waitlist wasn't about FOMO Rahul Vohra
  12. Video · 20 min watch Y Combinator's Michael Seibel: You Are Nothing Until You Launch Michael Seibel
  13. A fast, watchable version of the giver/taker/matcher framework if you don't have time for the full book. It's a good gut-check... TED Video Adam Grant: Are you a giver or a taker? Adam Grant
  14. Video · 20 min How To Keep Your Users Y Combinator Startup School (YouTube)
  15. Video Never Split the Difference | Chris Voss | Talks at Google Chris Voss
  16. Two YC partners talk plainly about why founders who avoid rejection end up avoiding their customers altogether, and why the... Y Combinator Video Dalton & Michael: Successful founders are OK with rejection Y Combinator
  17. Video · about 30 min The Cold Email Formula That Made Over $1,000,000 with Sam Parr Sam Parr
  18. Video Steve Jobs introduces the original iPhone, Macworld 2007 Apple / Macworld keynote
  19. Duarte studies presentations for a living, and this talk (using the Jobs iPhone launch as one of her two case studies) shows... TED (TEDxEast) Video The secret structure of great talks TED (TEDxEast)
  20. Video · 35 min video Founder-Led Sales for Y Combinator Demo Day Sam Blond
  21. Video Follow Up or Die: Why "Maybe" Is Killing Your Business (Interview with Steli Efti of Close.io) Steli Efti
  22. Video How to Write the Ultimate Cold Email, Framework Alex Berman (YouTube)
  23. Video How many times should you Follow Up? Alex Berman
  24. Video How To Cold Email Clients (WINNING Cold Email Templates) Alex Berman

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? 20 → 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 →