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 short, honest founder writeup that echoes the heart of our answer: a handful of real conversations with people in your target... Indie Hackers Thread · approx 10 min read How I got my first 100 users Alexander Chen
  2. 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
  3. 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
  4. Cohen bootstrapped two companies past a hundred million in revenue, and he is blunt that a typical launch converts around one... A Smart Bear (Jason Cohen) Essay · 15 min read Excuse Me, Is There a Problem? Jason Cohen
  5. Early sales is not about volume, it is about finding the few customers who want your vision badly enough to bet on an unproven... Andreessen Horowitz Article When Sales Isn't Just Selling: Advice for Founders in Early Markets Martin Casado
  6. Podcast SaaS Startups: Early Stage Sales, Product Demos and Right to Sell with Jen Abel Jen Abel and Amit Somani
  7. This reframes early customers as something you win through effort rather than something you stumble onto, which directly... Medium Article Early Stage Sales: Why Every Startup's First Customers Are Won, Not Found DC
  8. 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
  9. A calm, practical guide to founder-led selling from zero, built around the idea that you close early deals through warm... Stripe Atlas Article Your first 10 customers Patrick McKenzie
  10. If you are unsure whether it is your price stopping the sale, start here: figure out which order of magnitude you are in (a 10... Naomi Ionita, Lenny's Newsletter Article How to price your product Naomi Ionita
  11. Sometimes the stall is your pitch: you demo features instead of framing the problem and the cost of not solving it. Dunford... April Dunford, Lenny's Newsletter Article A step-by-step guide to crafting a sales pitch that wins April Dunford
  12. Practical scripts for the exact moment interest collides with price, so you have something better than a nervous discount. It... HubSpot Article 14 responses to the objection "Your price is too high" Davidson Hang
  13. 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
  14. A companion breakdown of how early users became paying customers, including companies that had no paid plan at launch and... Lenny's Newsletter Article · ~15 min read How today's fastest-growing B2B businesses turned their early users into paying customers Lenny Rachitsky
  15. When you want your old network to open doors rather than just buy, this covers how to ask in a way that respects their time and... Kristina Hu (Hu Knows) Article · ~8 min read How to Ask for a Warm Intro Kristina Hu
  16. A grounded walkthrough of where first customers realistically come from, starting with the people you already know. It treats... Startups.com Article · ~15 min read How to find the first 100 customers for your startup Startups.com
  17. A concrete, tactical guide to working through your own network toward paying customers without awkward pitches. It walks... UniTel Voice Article · ~15 min read How to Get Your First 10 Paying Customers Using Your Personal Network UniTel Voice
  18. The other half of the problem: once you have supply, how do you get the first buyers so sellers do not churn out of an empty... Lenny's Newsletter Article · 15 min read Cracking the Chicken-and-Egg Problem: Growing Initial Demand (Part 4) Lenny Rachitsky
  19. Video · ~20 min Solving the Chicken or Egg Problem James Currier
  20. Before you sweat which side to seed, Gurley helps you judge whether your marketplace is even structurally worth building. He... Above the Crowd Essay · 20 min read All Markets Are Not Created Equal: 10 Factors to Consider When Evaluating Digital Marketplaces Bill Gurley
  21. Since supply is usually the side you bootstrap by hand, this is a focused list of 28 concrete ways real marketplaces did it. It... andrewchen.com Article · 15 min read 28 Ways to Grow Supply in a Marketplace Lenny Rachitsky (via Andrew Chen)
  22. Balfour, who led growth at HubSpot and founded Reforge, breaks the cold start into the mechanics of how you actually reach... Brian Balfour Essay · 20 min read The Network Effect: Solving the Chicken or the Egg Brian Balfour
  23. This is the famous story of Airbnb flying to New York and photographing listings door to door, the most literal example of... First Round Review Article · 12 min read How Design Thinking Transformed Airbnb from Failing Startup to Billion Dollar Business First Round Review
  24. Video · ~45 min Building Product, Talking to Users, and Growing (How to Start a Startup, Lecture 4) Adora Cheung

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 →