Video · About 30 minutes

How to Get Users and Grow

Gustaf Alstromer · Y Combinator (Startup School) Free Beginner

How to Get Users and Grow

Alstromer ran growth at Airbnb and now works with hundreds of YC startups, and his core message answers the question directly: working on growth, including paid ads, before you have product-market fit and real retention is a mistake. He is specific about the metrics that actually signal you are ready, versus the vanity numbers that lie. It reframes paid spend as an amplifier for something already working, not a way to create demand.

  • Do not spend on growth or paid channels before you have product-market fit and good retention, ads amplify what exists, they cannot manufacture it.
  • Retention is the truest signal of whether people want your product, watch it before you open a marketing budget.
  • Founders should get first users through direct effort and sales, paid acquisition comes later once the funnel actually converts and retains.
Watch on YouTube ↗

It answers 2 questions

  1. Everyone says do things that don't scale, but where's the line between that and just wasting weeks doing manual work?
  2. When is it too early to spend on paid ads, and what should I do with that money instead?

Read with it

  1. The permission slip to recruit users by hand, do things manually, and deliver 'insanely great' experiences to your first few... paulgraham.com Essay · ~15 min read Do Things That Don't Scale Paul Graham
  2. The single best thing ever written on customer conversations. It teaches you to ask about the customer's life and past... momtestbook.com Book · ~130 pages The Mom Test Rob Fitzpatrick
  3. Michael Seibel's crisp framing of holding the problem and customer tightly while holding the solution loosely, the mindset that... Y Combinator Startup Library Video · ~15 min How to Plan an MVP Michael Seibel
  4. The origin text for the modern MVP and validated-learning vocabulary every founder now uses. Read it for the mental model that... theleanstartup.com Book · ~330 pages The Lean Startup Eric Ries
  5. A data-backed teardown of how companies like Figma, Gusto, and Vanta actually sourced their earliest customers. Replaces... Lenny's Newsletter Article · ~15 min read How today's fastest-growing B2B startups found their first ten customers Lenny Rachitsky
  6. The definitive playbook on distribution, it catalogs all 19 channels and gives you the Bullseye framework to systematically... Portfolio / Penguin Book · book (~240 pages) Traction: How Any Startup Can Achieve Explosive Customer Growth Gabriel Weinberg & Justin Mares
eChai Partner Brands The partnership →