Video · ~10 min

How to get your first ten customers

Michael Seibel · Y Combinator (YouTube) Free Beginner

How to get your first ten customers

Before you have any data to cluster into an ICP, your job is to find and watch a handful of real customers up close. Michael Seibel (YC, co-founder of Twitch) gives a short, concrete talk on where those first customers actually come from and how to spot the ones who genuinely have the problem. It pairs well with the interview technique in The Mom Test: this is where to point that technique first.

  • Your first customers usually come from people you already know, not scalable ads or viral growth
  • Look for buyers who are eager to solve the problem and willing to pay, and skip the merely curious
  • Getting something real in front of them teaches you faster than any amount of talking alone
Watch on YouTube ↗

It answers 7 questions

  1. Cold email or cold LinkedIn/DM, what works better for reaching first customers?
  2. How do I find my ICP when I'm selling to Indian SMBs who don't fit clean B2B categories?
  3. How do I find my first 10 customers to sell to when I have zero network and no inbound?
  4. How do I size a market I want to sell to businesses outside the big Indian startup hubs?
  5. Should I try to close my first 10 customers one by one, or run a small launch to get them all at once?
  6. How do I cold email my first ten customers when I have no logos, no traction, and no case studies?
  7. I keep getting warm interest and 'this is great' but no one pays. How do I turn the first yes into money?

Read with it

  1. 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
  2. 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
  3. Video · ~25 min How to Talk to Users Eric Migicovsky
  4. A tactical follow-on covering the channels and motions top B2B startups scale after the first ten. Grounds distribution... Lenny's Newsletter Article · ~15 min read How to win your first 10 B2B customers Lenny Rachitsky
  5. The authoritative handbook on founder-led sales, written for technical/first-time sellers building B2B SaaS. Readable free... foundingsales.com Book · book (~400 pages) Founding Sales: The Early Stage Go-to-Market Handbook Peter Kazanjy
  6. An Indian founder story where the early demand test was manual, cold emails and direct outreach to find the first customers... Prime Venture Partners Podcast Podcast · ~50 min How Khadim Batti Built Whatfix Into a Global SaaS Leader Prime Venture Partners
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