Get your first customers

How do I actually get my first 10 customers when nobody has heard of me?

The short answer

You go get them by hand, one at a time, email people you already know, people your investors/friends know, and strangers in the exact niche you're building for. Do not build funnels or run ads for your first ten; recruit them personally, onboard them yourself, and treat each one like the only customer you have. The manual work is the point: it teaches you what an automated funnel never would.

Go deeper, your way

19 hand-picked resources, 18 link-checked. Pick how you want to dig in.

▶️ 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 →
▶️ Video
✓ Link checked Free Beginner

Why we picked it When you are new to a space, your instinct is to explain your idea and hope people nod, which teaches you nothing. This YC talk is a concrete guide to running discovery interviews the right way: extract data from the person instead of pitching, and use a small set of questions that work in any industry, including one you are still learning. It pairs well with The Mom Test as the applied version you can watch before your next call.

How to Talk to Users

On Y Combinator (Startup School) by Eric Migicovsky ~25 min

How to Talk to Users
  • The interview is to extract data, not to sell: stop talking about your idea and let them talk about their problem.
  • Skip hypothetical questions (would you use this) and ask what they have actually done to solve the problem today.
  • A handful of questions works across any industry, so you can start interviewing before you are an expert in the space.
Watch on YouTube youtube.com →
🎧 Podcast
✓ Link checked Free Intermediate

Why we picked it If you would rather hear the thinking than read it, this is Rahul Vohra on Lenny's Podcast talking through the same product-market-fit engine in his own voice. He is honest about deliberately ignoring most feedback and building for the narrow set of users who most love the product, which is exactly the discipline of sharpening your profile from real users. It is a repeatable system you can run yourself, explained conversationally with the messy parts left in.

Superhuman's secret to success: ignoring most customer feedback, manually onboarding every user, and positioning around one attribute | Rahul Vohra

On Lenny's Podcast by Lenny Rachitsky

  • Not all feedback is equal: he weights the people who already love the product far above everyone else when deciding what to build.
  • Manually onboarding every new user was how the team learned, in person, who the product was actually for.
  • The survey-and-segment loop is a system you run repeatedly, not a one-time exercise, so your profile keeps getting sharper.
Open lennysnewsletter.com →
🎧 Podcast
✓ Link checked India Free Intermediate

Why we picked it An Indian founder story where the early demand test was manual, cold emails and direct outreach to find the first customers before the product had proven itself. It is a grounded counterpoint to the landing page: sometimes the fastest way to measure intent in a B2B market is to ask people to commit directly. Useful if your buyers are enterprises who will never fill in a consumer style waitlist form.

How Khadim Batti Built Whatfix Into a Global SaaS Leader

On Prime Venture Partners Podcast by Prime Venture Partners ~50 min

  • In B2B, direct outreach can measure intent faster than a public page
  • A first paying customer is the strongest demand signal there is
  • Early traction in India often comes from manual hustle, not viral pages
Open primevp.in →
🎧 Podcast
✓ Link checked Free Beginner

Why we picked it A relaxed, honest conversation about founder selling aimed at exactly the bootstrapper or first-timer who dreads sales. Steli demystifies cold outreach, follow-up, and pricing in plain language so it stops feeling sleazy and starts feeling like a skill. Good to listen to on a walk before your first day of outreach.

Sales Tips Every Founder Should Know, with Steli Efti

On Indie Hackers Podcast by Courtland Allen, Steli Efti ~60 min

  • Selling is a learnable skill, not a personality you either have or lack.
  • Consistent follow-up beats a clever one-off pitch.
  • Founders who talk to customers directly learn faster than those who avoid it.
Open indiehackers.com →
📖 Book
✓ Link checked Paid Beginner

Why we picked it The single best thing ever written on customer conversations. It teaches you to ask about the customer's life and past behaviour, not your idea, so you can't be lied to. If a founder reads one thing before talking to a single customer, it's this.

The Mom Test

From momtestbook.com by Rob Fitzpatrick ~130 pages

  • Talk about their life, not your idea.
  • Ask about specifics in the past, not opinions about the future.
  • 'That's so cool, I'd totally buy it' is a compliment, not data, dig for commitment and evidence.
Open momtestbook.com →
📄 Article
✓ Link checked Freemium Intermediate

Why we picked it A tactical follow-on covering the channels and motions top B2B startups scale after the first ten. Grounds distribution strategy in real company examples.

How to win your first 10 B2B customers

From Lenny's Newsletter by Lenny Rachitsky ~15 min read

  • Content/SEO is a surprisingly dominant B2B channel (Vanta, Amplitude, Figma, HubSpot).
  • The core B2B channels: self-serve inbound, sales-assist inbound, outbound, content, paid, partnerships.
  • Pick and systematize the one channel that compounds for you.
  • Distribution strategy should follow evidence, not fashion.
Open lennysnewsletter.com →
📄 Article
✓ Link checked Freemium Intermediate

Why we picked it The consumer counterpart to finding B2B customers, focused on manually recruiting your first users for a consumer product. It is full of tactics for going into communities, WhatsApp and Facebook groups, and forums where your users already spend time. Practical fuel for reaching a market that the metros are ignoring.

How to Find Your Early Adopters by Doing Things That Don't Scale

From Lenny's Newsletter by Lenny Rachitsky

  • Go to the online places your users already gather
  • Recruit early adopters by hand before you automate anything
  • Small niche communities can seed your first real users
Open lennysnewsletter.com →
📄 Article
✓ Link checked Free Intermediate

Why we picked it Before you have any customer stories, your own founder story is the only pitch you have, and this piece shows you how to use it. It walks through defining who suffers most from the problem, framing the cost of that problem in money, and structuring a pitch that makes buying obvious. For a founder who has never sold, it turns the first ten conversations from awkward into deliberate.

The Three Frameworks You Need to Kick-start Sales

From First Round Review by Whitney Sales ~15 min read

  • Your founder story is your first customer story, lean on it until you have others.
  • Find your ideal customer by who suffers most acutely from the problem.
  • Frame the pitch around the money the problem is costing them today.
Open review.firstround.com →
📄 Article
✓ Link checked Free Intermediate

Why we picked it Validation in B2B bleeds straight into early sales, and this answers the real questions founders hit when they start selling to first buyers. It covers who to target, how to run those first deals founder-led, and when a pilot is enough proof to keep going. Practical grounding for the messy stretch between 'a buyer said yes on a call' and 'a buyer signed.'

The Most Common Go-to-Market Questions This Expert Gets from Early Founders

From First Round Review by Emery Rosansky (First Round Review) 18 min read

  • Early B2B motion should be sales-led while you still figure out your ideal buyer
  • Founders must close the first customers themselves before hiring sales
  • Define your ICP by talking to buyers, not by guessing on a whiteboard
Open review.firstround.com →
📖 Book
✓ Link checked Freemium Intermediate

Why we picked it The authoritative handbook on founder-led sales, written for technical/first-time sellers building B2B SaaS. Readable free online via membership, and covers the whole motion end to end.

Founding Sales: The Early Stage Go-to-Market Handbook

From foundingsales.com by Peter Kazanjy book (~400 pages)

  • Do ~50 demos and hit a ~20%+ win rate before hiring your first sales rep.
  • Discovery before demo, understand the problem before you pitch.
  • Dedicated chapters on prospect outreach and demo appointment setting.
  • Turn founder selling into a documented, repeatable, transferable process.
Open foundingsales.com →
📄 Article
✓ Link checked Free Intermediate

Why we picked it Steli Efti built Close by doing founder sales the hard way, and here he answers the blunt questions founders actually ask about early selling and pricing. His central point matters for your first ten: charge more than feels comfortable, because underpricing hides whether people really want it. Short, practical, and free of jargon.

AMA with Steli Efti: Pricing, Selling and Building a Sales Team

From Stripe Atlas by Steli Efti ~20 min read

  • Charge more than feels natural, cheap pricing masks weak demand.
  • A cold email must instantly answer who you are and why you picked them.
  • Persistence in follow-up separates founders who close from those who do not.
Open stripe.com →
📄 Article
✓ Link checked Free Intermediate

Why we picked it When your first ten will come from cold outreach, this guide gives you the full mechanics: building a target list, qualifying, writing the email, and running follow-ups without being annoying. It is the operational counterpart to the Lenny and YC pieces, showing the actual day-to-day of prospecting. Work through it as a checklist for your outbound.

The Ultimate Startup Guide to Outbound Sales

From Close by Steli Efti Multi-chapter guide

  • Build a tight, specific list of the right people before you write anything.
  • Qualify hard so you spend time on prospects who can actually buy.
  • Structured follow-up, not a single email, is where most deals are won.
Open close.com →
📄 Article
✓ Link checked Free Beginner

Why we picked it This is the rare cold email piece written by someone who has actually sent thousands of them (Steli Efti built Close, a sales CRM, on the back of founder-led outreach). It gives you 15 real templates with the subject line, the body, and the reasoning for when to use each, so you can see the moving parts instead of copying blind. It is honest that a template is a starting point, not a magic phrase: the personalization you add is what earns the reply.

15 Best Cold Email Templates That Actually Get Replies (Proven Examples)

From Close by Steli Efti

  • Keep it short and answer three questions fast: who are you, what do you want, and why this person specifically.
  • End with one clear, low-friction call to action, and plan your follow-ups before you send the first email.
  • Templates save time but only work once you layer in real, specific personalization; a copy-paste blast reads like one.
Open close.com →
📄 Article
✓ Link checked Free Intermediate

Why we picked it Getting the customer to say yes is only half the job, the other half is onboarding them yourself so they actually succeed. This breaks down how Superhuman ran one-to-one onboarding and what founders should copy when they have only a handful of users. It gives your first ten a reason to stay, not just sign up.

How to Build and Scale Onboarding (The Superhuman Playbook)

From First Round Review by Gaurav Vohra ~20 min read

  • Onboarding is where an early customer decides to stay or churn.
  • Doing it one to one at first teaches you where users get stuck.
  • Only systematise onboarding after you have watched enough people do it live.
Open review.firstround.com →
📖 Book
✓ Link checked Paid Intermediate

Why we picked it The definitive playbook on distribution, it catalogs all 19 channels and gives you the Bullseye framework to systematically find the one that works. Essential for anyone thinking channel-first.

Traction: How Any Startup Can Achieve Explosive Customer Growth

From Portfolio / Penguin by Gabriel Weinberg & Justin Mares book (~240 pages)

  • There are 19 traction channels; most startups win on just one.
  • Bullseye framework: brainstorm all channels, test 3, focus on the winner.
  • The 50% rule: split your time evenly between product and traction.
  • Draws on 40+ founder interviews (Wikipedia, reddit, HubSpot, Kayak).
Open amazon.com →
📄 Article
✓ Link checked Freemium Beginner

Why we picked it This is the full, concrete story of how Airbnb got off zero, from the Craigslist cross-posting hack to poaching Craigslist hosts by hand and flying to new cities to sign up supply in person. Seeing the specific, unglamorous moves makes the abstract advice real. Read it when you need proof that hand-recruiting founders became a giant company.

How Airbnb Got Its First 1,000 Customers

From First 1000 by Ali Abouelatta ~12 min read

  • Airbnb grew supply by hand, cross-posting and poaching hosts off Craigslist one message at a time.
  • In-person visits to new cities beat paid ads on cost per customer.
  • Early growth came from founder hustle and unconventional hacks, not marketing spend.
Open read.first1000.co →
📄 Article
✓ Link checked Freemium Intermediate

Why we picked it A data-backed teardown of how companies like Figma, Gusto, and Vanta actually sourced their earliest customers. Replaces guesswork with real patterns.

How today's fastest-growing B2B startups found their first ten customers

From Lenny's Newsletter by Lenny Rachitsky ~15 min read

  • Only three sourcing strategies power nearly all very-early B2B growth.
  • Tap your personal network first (Gusto's first 10 were friends/YC batchmates).
  • Reach influential users via direct outreach (Figma cold-emailed top designers).
  • Start with the highest-trust channels and work outward.
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

Isn't doing things that don't scale a waste of time, shouldn't I automate from day one? No. Automating too early is how you build a machine that efficiently delivers something nobody wants. The unscalable, unglamorous work, hand-recrui... Beginner 17 resources → Where do I find the very first people to even talk to about my product? Start with the channels that already have trust and work outward: your personal network, then your extended network via warm intros, then the influ... Beginner 18 resources → Should I charge my very first customers or give it away free to get traction? Charge them. Free users tell you polite lies; paying customers tell you the truth, because money is the clearest signal that you've solved a real p... Beginner 18 resources → How did real successful startups actually land their first customers? Almost universally through unscalable, personal effort: Airbnb's founders knocked on doors and re-shot listing photos themselves; Stripe hand-insta... Intermediate 20 resources → I only have a landing page and a waitlist, how do I turn signups into paying customers? A waitlist is not traction; it's a list of people to email personally. Reach out to each signup one-on-one, get on a call, understand their problem... Beginner 17 resources → My first 5 customers were friends who signed up to be nice. How do I know if any of them actually want the product? Friends will smile and sign up, then quietly never use it, which feels like traction but is just kindness. The signal you want is behavior, not wor... Beginner 19 resources →

Also in D2C

The same ground, over in Launch & get your first customers, our D2C track.

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