First Customers (GTM)

How do I get my first 100 users when nobody has heard of me?

A starting point

The first 100 come from doing unscalable things: reaching out to people you already know, going to where your users hang out and being useful there, and asking every early user for one introduction. Forget clever growth hacks at this stage, they are for when you already have traction to amplify. Aim for depth over reach, because 100 users who genuinely love it and tell others beats 10,000 who signed up and vanished.

Go deeper

Hand-picked from around the web, each with a note on why it earns your time.

3 resources 2 link-checked Watch Read

Watch

▶️ Video
✓ Link checked Free Beginner

Why we picked it This is the canonical short talk on winning your first users when you have no audience and no sales team. Alstromer (YC partner, former head of growth at Airbnb) makes the case that early on you do things that do not scale: you go where your users already gather, reach out directly, and talk to them one at a time. For a solo technical founder that is a relief, because it is closer to helping people in a community than to cold-call selling.

How to Get Your First Customers (Startup School)

On Y Combinator (YouTube) by Gustaf Alstromer About 25 minutes

How to Get Your First Customers (Startup School)
  • Do things that do not scale at the start: hand-find your first users in the communities and forums where they already hang out.
  • The founder should be the one doing early sales, because nobody understands the product and the problem better than you.
  • Charge early and watch who actually says yes; a real customer is a much stronger signal than a free sign-up.
Watch on YouTube youtube.com →

Read

📄 Article
✓ Link checked Freemium Beginner

Why we picked it Most first 100 users advice is vague. This piece is the opposite: it groups the real cold start tactics into seven concrete plays and names the exact company behind each one, from Tinder pitching sororities in person to Dropbox seeding online communities. Read it as a menu to pick from, not a checklist to run top to bottom, since almost every founder here won just one channel that fit them.

How the biggest consumer apps got their first 1,000 users

From Lenny's Newsletter by Lenny Rachitsky About a 15 minute read

  • The tactics sort into seven repeatable plays: go to users offline, find them online, invite friends, manufacture exclusivity, use influencers, get press, and build a community before launch.
  • Most companies got their first users from a single channel that fit their product, so the job is finding your one, not doing all of them.
  • Nearly all of it was unglamorous and manual: door to door, one community at a time, personal invites rather than a growth machine.
Open lennysnewsletter.com →
✍️ Essay
Free Beginner

Why we picked it The permission slip to recruit users by hand, do things manually, and deliver 'insanely great' experiences to your first few customers. The cheapest, most honest way to validate demand is to go get it one person at a time.

Do Things That Don't Scale

From paulgraham.com by Paul Graham ~15 min read

  • Recruit your first users manually, don't wait for them to come.
  • A tiny group of users who love you beats a big group who like you.
  • Manual, unscalable effort early is a feature, not a failure.
Open paulgraham.com →

People also ask

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