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 founder walking through the exact playbook that took his product to #1 Product of the Day, Week, and SaaS Product of the... Tom Dekan Article How we won Product of the Week on Product Hunt Tom Dekan
  2. An Indian solo founder's real account of hitting #1 Product of the Day, with the tactic he says mattered most: personal DMs to... Inbox Pirates Article How we won Producthunt #1 Product of The Day As a Solo Founder (And you can too!) Inbox Pirates
  3. Product Hunt's own weekly podcast, hosted by Ryan Hoover and Abadesi Osunsade, with founders and makers talking through... Product Hunt Podcast Product Hunt Radio Product Hunt
  4. A direct list of the specific mistakes that sink launches, useful to skim right before you hit submit as a final gut check.... Poindeo Article The Product Hunt Playbook: 10 Mistakes That Will Kill Your Launch Poindeo
  5. A working engineer's own account of what actually happened when he posted to Hacker News, including timing, title wording, and... Lucas Costa Essay How to Do a Successful Hacker News Launch Lucas Costa
  6. Marc Lou has shipped and launched many small products, and this is his practical rundown of how Show HN posts actually move... Marc Lou Article How to Launch a Startup on Hacker News Marc Lou
  7. The companion piece to Marc Lou's Hacker News guide, written from the same practical, ship-it perspective but for Product Hunt... Marc Lou Article How to Launch a Startup on Product Hunt Marc Lou
  8. A practical, no-nonsense comparison of what actually differs across these three specific channels: what each one rewards, what... DEV Community Article Indie Dev Launch Strategy: Getting Traction on Product Hunt, Hacker News, and Reddit DEV Community
  9. The most thorough practical guide we found on organic Reddit specifically, going beyond just avoiding a ban into how to... Karmic Article Reddit Marketing Guide: The Reddit Organic Marketing Guide for Startups and Scale Ups Karmic
  10. Jackson uses how bands sell out tour dates, announcing months ahead, building anticipation in stages, as a working template for... justinjackson.ca Essay · 10 min read How to build demand before you launch Justin Jackson
  11. Written by the founder of ConvertKit, this book is squarely about the sequence your short answer describes: build an audience... nathanbarry.com Book · Book Authority: Become an Expert, Build a Following, and Gain Financial Independence Nathan Barry
  12. A plain, no-jargon explainer of building in public for founders who have heard the term but aren't sure what to actually post... Indie Hackers Article · 8 min read What Is Building in Public? (Explained Simply) Indie Hackers
  13. This is the practical rulebook for your actual question. It draws the line between shipping (code deployed) and launching... Lenny's Wiki Article Feature Launches Lenny's Wiki
  14. Two former Amazon VPs explain the PR/FAQ method: writing the press release before you build anything, for far more initiatives... St. Martin's Press Book · ~350 pages Working Backwards: Insights, Stories, and Secrets from Inside Amazon Colin Bryar, Bill Carr
  15. Holiday's core argument is that growth hackers don't bolt marketing onto a finished product, they build it into the product and... Portfolio Book · ~176 pages Growth Hacker Marketing: A Primer on the Future of PR, Marketing, and Advertising Ryan Holiday
  16. Michael Seibel lays out a concrete process for shipping as a small team, including deciding on an actual release schedule and... Y Combinator Blog Article How To Build Product As A Small Startup Michael Seibel
  17. This gives you a simple tier system, from a major launch down to a minor one, so you can decide how much noise each thing you... Medium Article The Launch Tier System That Transforms Product Teams Aakash Gupta
  18. Julian Shapiro argues that growth should be designed into the product itself rather than bolted on afterward, so every new... julian.com Article Startup Handbook: Product-Led Acquisition Julian Shapiro
  19. Ries makes the exact distinction our answer rests on: a product launch (making it available) and a marketing launch (making... Startup Lessons Learned (Eric Ries) Essay · 10 min read Don't launch Eric Ries
  20. Godin names the exact failure mode our answer warns about: work that could ship but does not, dressed up as caution. It is... Seth's Blog Essay · 3 min read Project Resistance Seth Godin
  21. A short, sharp distinction that names your exact problem: meeting a real spec is craft, chasing an ever-shifting ideal is... Seth's Blog Essay · 2 min read Perfect is not the same as perfectionism Seth Godin
  22. Clear separates what's optimal from what's actually needed to begin, which is useful when you keep waiting for the landing page... jamesclear.com Essay · 6 min read The Power of Imperfect Starts James Clear
  23. 37signals' own internal rules for when something is done enough to ship, written by a team that has shipped products for over... Basecamp Article Seven Shipping Principles Basecamp
  24. This explains, with the classic committee-and-bikeshed example, exactly why founders fuss over fonts and micro-copy instead of... Effectiviology Article Bikeshedding and the Law of Triviality: Why People Focus on Minor Issues Effectiviology

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 →