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. If you just want to know how many people showed up and how long they stayed, without slowing your page or bolting on a cookie... plausible.io Tool Plausible Analytics Plausible Insights
  2. The reason technical founders write copy that experts respect but nobody acts on has a name, and this book coined it: the curse... Random House Book Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die Chip Heath and Dan Heath
  3. If you cannot yet hear which of your sentences read as translated, this free tool shows you. Paste your draft and it highlights... Hemingway App Tool · Free web version, paid desktop app Hemingway Editor Hemingway App
  4. This is the rare cold email guide that gives you a concrete structure instead of vague advice about being personal. It walks... Clay Article · ~20 min read B2B Cold Email Copywriting: The Complete Guide Mishti Sharma
  5. Google tells you what to aim for, but Handley teaches you the actual craft of getting there: how to write something a human... Ann Handley Book Everybody Writes: Your Go-To Guide to Creating Ridiculously Good Content Ann Handley
  6. Video · ~90 min The ultimate guide to founder-led sales (Jen Abel, co-founder of JJELLYFISH) Lenny's Podcast (guest Jen Abel)
  7. Once you have even one happy customer, this is how you turn that into the proof that wins the next one. Amy Saper (who did... Uncork Capital on Medium Article · About a 12 minute read Let Your Customers Do Your Marketing: A Practical Guide to Creating Customer Case Studies and Testimonials Amy Saper (Uncork Capital)
  8. This is the practical companion to the mindset stuff: it walks through actually turning an interested prospect into a paying... close.com Article Founder's Guide to Startup Sales: How to Build, Operate & Scale a Founder-Led Sales Process Nick Persico
  9. This essay names the exact trap you are in: delays in launching are usually fear of being judged and excessive perfectionism... paulgraham.com Essay · ~15 min read The 18 Mistakes That Kill Startups Paul Graham
  10. India does not have one launch button, so this is a useful starting point precisely because it shows ten real companies... Medium Article · ~10 min read How These 10 Indian Companies Got Their First 1000 Customers Harkirat Singh
  11. If you do decide a waitlist earns its place, this is a clean, concrete way to run one well without building it yourself: a... LaunchList Tool LaunchList: Viral Pre-Launch Waitlist Software with Referrals LaunchList
  12. This is the piece that named the problem you are asking about: the difference between numbers that make you feel good and... The Blog of Tim Ferriss Article · 10 minute read Vanity Metrics vs. Actionable Metrics Eric Ries
  13. Founders selling their own product almost always price too low, because they see every flaw in what they built and undercharge... Kalzumeus Essay · Long-form essay plus transcript, ~30 min read Ramit Sethi and Patrick McKenzie On Why Your Customers Would Be Happier If You Charged More Patrick McKenzie (patio11)
  14. Most enterprise sales advice assumes you already have a brand and a sales team, and this guide is written for the opposite... WorkOS Blog Article A Guide to Enterprise Sales for Early-stage Founders WorkOS
  15. Ash Rust invests at pre-seed and has watched dozens of founders let a friendly pilot drift into a free forever engagement. His... Medium (Sterling Road) Essay · 8 min read Startup Sales: How to Get Pilot Customers to Pay Ash Rust
  16. This is a curated run of founder interviews on The SaaS Podcast about landing the very first paying customers, and the... SaaS Club Podcast · Ongoing series, ~45 to 60 min episodes Getting Your First SaaS Customers (Founder Interviews) Omer Khan, The SaaS Podcast
  17. The YC essay tells you the rules; this shows you real founders following (and bending) them. These are 13 actual cold emails... OpenVC Blog Article · 12 min read 13 Cold Email Examples Sent to VC Investors OpenVC
  18. Clay is the tool most outbound teams reach for when they want research-driven personalization instead of name placeholders. It... Clay Tool Clay Clay Labs, Inc.
  19. This is the one guide that walks the full technical stack in plain language: SPF, DKIM, DMARC, domain warmup timelines, and the... Smartlead Article Email Deliverability Guide: SPF, DKIM, Warmup and Everything That Gets You to the Inbox Satwick Ghosh (Smartlead)
  20. Video Y Combinator's Brutally Simple Playbook to Get Your First 100 Customers Y Combinator
  21. Arvid Kahl bootstrapped and sold a real business, so this is a founder talking tradeoffs, not theory. He argues for finding an... Indie Hackers Podcast · About 60 to 70 minutes Indie Hackers Podcast #212: Arvid Kahl on Building an Audience Before a Product Courtland Allen (host), Arvid Kahl (guest)
  22. Andrew Chen ran growth at Uber and a16z, and his core idea here, the Law of Shitty Clickthroughs, is exactly why a channel that... andrewchen.substack.com Article Every Marketing Channel Sucks Right Now Andrew Chen
  23. Batko is a two-time founder and former Startmate CEO who has received thousands of cold emails, so he writes from the receiving... batko.ai Article · 15 min read Cold Email Templates for Founders: 5 Templates That Get Replies Michael Batko
  24. Sometimes your emails are not ignored, they never reach the inbox, and no amount of copy editing fixes a deliverability... instantly.ai Tool · Web app Instantly Cold Email Outreach and Deliverability Instantly

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 →