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 punchy, contrarian classic on building a lean, sane, profitable company from the founders of Basecamp. It's the antidote to... 37signals Book · ~288 pages Rework Jason Fried & David Heinemeier Hansson In 3 answers
  2. When you are building outside the big startup hubs, the honest question is not "what is the theory" but "what actually worked... Indie Hackers Article · ~15 min read Indie hackers share how they got their first 10, 100, and 1,000 customers James Fleischmann In 3 answers
  3. Judging whether people will actually change their behavior comes down to how well you can hear intensity in what they say, and... deployempathy.com Book · Full book, roughly 250 pages Deploy Empathy: A Practical Guide to Interviewing Customers Michele Hansen In 3 answers
  4. If you would rather hear the thinking than read it, this is Rahul Vohra on Lenny's Podcast talking through the same... Lenny's Podcast Podcast Superhuman's secret to success: ignoring most customer feedback, manually onboarding every user, and positioning around one attribute | Rahul Vohra Lenny Rachitsky In 3 answers
  5. Video · about 30 minutes How to Sell Tyler Bosmeny In 3 answers
  6. If you decide Product Hunt fits your audience, this is the playbook that treats a launch as weeks of prep, not a single day.... Demand Curve Article · Long-form guide, roughly a 20 minute read How to Launch on Product Hunt Nick Costelloe In 3 answers
  7. Video Startup Pricing 101 Kevin Hale In 3 answers
  8. The two ways to fake a product while you test real demand. Do the work by hand in the open (concierge), or hide the manual work... LogRocket Article · ~12 min read Concierge vs. Wizard of Oz MVP LogRocket In 3 answers
  9. The free tool for running the how-would-you-feel-without-this survey that underpins the Superhuman method, giving you a... Sean Ellis and GoPractice Tool · Free tool Product/Market Fit Survey Sean Ellis In 3 answers
  10. The CRED and Freecharge founder on building in India, including his line that Indian founders rush to solutions and underinvest... Lenny's Podcast Podcast · ~90 min Kunal Shah on winning in India, second-order thinking, and the philosophy of startups Kunal Shah (with Lenny Rachitsky) In 3 answers
  11. Validation in B2B bleeds straight into early sales, and this answers the real questions founders hit when they start selling to... First Round Review Article · 18 min read The Most Common Go-to-Market Questions This Expert Gets from Early Founders Emery Rosansky (First Round Review) In 3 answers
  12. Tom Blomfield's practical framework for pricing when you sell to businesses, including why to charge from the start and how to... Y Combinator Startup Library Video How to Price for B2B (Tom Blomfield, Y Combinator) Tom Blomfield In 3 answers
  13. Chesky tells the Airbnb story in his own voice, including flying to New York to meet hosts and re-shoot their listing photos by... Masters of Scale (Reid Hoffman) Podcast · 35 min Airbnb's Brian Chesky: Do Things That Don't Scale Reid Hoffman In 3 answers
  14. A short, honest essay arguing that cold outbound is both a strong demand signal and a skill you will need anyway. It counters... Pascal Unger (pascalsnotes.substack.com) Essay · ~10 min read Cold Outbound is Under-Appreciated Pascal Unger In 3 answers
  15. The one thing you cannot outsource is staying on top of your first conversations, and this is a free CRM that lives inside... streak.com Tool Streak CRM for Gmail Streak In 3 answers
  16. A short, direct conversation between two founders on when cold email works, who to send to, and how to write the subject line... The Startup Chat with Steli and Hiten Podcast · 18 min The Startup Chat, Episode 014: Cold Email Steli Efti and Hiten Shah In 3 answers
  17. This is Product Hunt's own pre-launch checklist, covering exactly the assets you need lined up weeks ahead: gallery images,... Product Hunt Article Preparing for launch Product Hunt In 3 answers
  18. A short, sharp counterpoint to the instinct to try to reach everyone before you launch: Godin argues you should aim for the... Seth's Blog Essay · 3 min read The smallest viable audience Seth Godin In 3 answers
  19. Ryan Hoover has watched more product launches than almost anyone through Product Hunt, and this conversation covers exactly... Lenny's Podcast Podcast How to launch and grow your product | Ryan Hoover of Product Hunt and Weekend Fund Lenny Rachitsky, Ryan Hoover In 3 answers
  20. A short, practical guide you can lift straight into your own process: how many times to follow up, what to say at each touch,... Close Template The Follow Up Formula Steli Efti In 3 answers
  21. This breaks down how early sales teams actually build and work a target account list, including how to find contact information... First Round Review Article · 12 min read Designing Your Sales Stack so that Customers Come to You Max Altschuler and Jorge Soto In 3 answers
  22. A bootstrapped founder's step by step account of building a short list of exactly-fit prospects and personally emailing each... Indie Hackers Thread · 10 min read How to get your first 10 customers with cold email William Paul In 3 answers
  23. This is a practical, step by step walkthrough with real before and after examples of cold emails, useful when you want a... Woodpecker Article · 12 min read How to Write a Cold Email: 6 Steps + Templates Woodpecker In 3 answers
  24. A real teardown of real cold emails sent to a real, busy recipient, with his honest reaction to each subject line. Reading... Nick Gray Essay Feedback on 4 Cold Emails To Me From Ramit's Brain Trust Nick Gray In 3 answers

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 →