Getting my first 100 users with $0: what actually worked
Edited content.
Let me explain the title: I can help you acquire your first 100 users for $0, I just need you to tell me what your product is.
I've developed a tool to help independent developers acquire users.
Here's how to use it:
1.Click the link below and log in.
2.Enter your product’s website URL.
3.Get a complete marketing plan (just like one created by a marketing partner).
4.Choose to execute the plan or modify it.
5.Monitor the results in the dashboard and see how many people start visiting your website.
🔗 https://amplift.ai/?utm_source=indiehackers&utm_campaign=post_dec
You can use it for free now by logging in.
Of course, since the tool is still in its early stages of development, I've assembled a team with extensive marketing experience and we also offer early-stage growth services. Simply provide us with the product you want to grow and the growth services you need, and we can give you a quote.
Starting at just $20 per month!
If you're feeling lost about how to grow your product and don't know where to start, you can tell me about your product type, its current stage, and your growth budget. My team will provide you with a satisfactory solution.
If you are interested in this, please send an email to [email protected]. We look forward to hearing from you!
（$69 is the price for our product and services, which include a wide range of tools such as GEO targeting, influencer marketing, and social media content.
$20 is the price for our newly launched growth service, which is entirely managed by a real marketing team. You can customize the type of growth you need, and even purchase the desired level of exposure among your target audience.）
Finding the first 100 users is the ultimate hurdle. After 11 years as a Senior Executive, I’m used to big budgets and agency support. Now that I’m building 'The Solopreneur’s Playbook' from scratch, I’m learning the $0-growth game. I’ll definitely be plugging my newsletter URL into Amplift. Does your tool suggest specific high-leverage hooks for LinkedIn and Twitter, or is it more focused on SEO?
I like the idea of making actionable marketing plans accessible to early-stage devs. Having a structured set of steps like logging in, entering a URL, and receiving a plan can lower the barrier to getting started. I'm curious how you tailor these plans to different niches or product stages – do you collect information beyond the URL to adjust strategies? Also, what have been typical success metrics for the early users (e.g., sign-ups or conversion rates)? Thanks for sharing!
I gave your product a try. To be honest, it didn’t really wow me yet — but I do think the interface is really well done.
Man, I was stuck in the same loop.
I ended up making a little Chrome extension called Pulse of Reddit that basically acts like my own alert system for Reddit. Anytime someone posts something with keywords I care about like 'looking for a designer' or 'best SEO tool' it pings me right away. It’s saved me so much time and helped me hop into threads while they’re still fresh.
If you’re tired of manual digging and want to catch those conversations early, I’d really recommend giving it a look. It’s free to start and super simple to set up.
Website:
pulseofreddit.com
Interesting idea - As other people are saying the Reddit bit is quickly deteriorating. I'm concerned that the AI generated stuff is behind the curve no matter what based on the fact that if it's well documented and talked about it will be what is surfaced by an agent vs. the new ideas that are ahead of the curve.
I've been Linkedin outbounding pretty well, but it gets hard to manage/keep up. I've tried AI automation tools but honestly genuine connection performs so much better.
Totally agree real, thoughtful conversation is hard to replace.
I ended up making a little Chrome extension called Pulse of Reddit that basically acts like my own alert system for Reddit.
Anytime someone posts something with keywords I care about like 'looking for a designer' or 'best SEO tool' it pings me right away. It’s saved me so much time and helped me hop into threads while they’re still fresh.
If you’re tired of manual digging and want to catch those conversations early, I’d really recommend giving it a look.
It’s free to start and super simple to set up.
Website:
pulseofreddit.com
You're right but i advise business owner to have a sales system, software that can safe their time and work while they're away
Have you make use of any automation software before?
This is very nice!
Tekfun, Give a try to my Reddit Extension. It's a Chrome extension called Pulse of Reddit that basically acts like my own alert system for Reddit.
Anytime someone posts something with keywords I care about like 'looking for a designer' or 'best SEO tool' it pings me right away. It’s saved me so much time and helped me hop into threads while they’re still fresh.
If you’re tired of manual digging and want to catch those conversations early, I’d really recommend giving it a look.
It’s free to start and super simple to set up.
Website:
pulseofreddit.com
Interesting concept. Offering a clear, step-by-step marketing plan for early user acquisition at such a low entry point will definitely appeal to indie founders who don’t know where to start. Curious to see real case studies or results as the tool matures.
Ayaansmith, Give a try to my Reddit Extension. It's a Chrome extension called Pulse of Reddit that basically acts like my own alert system for Reddit.
Anytime someone posts something with keywords I care about like 'looking for a designer' or 'best SEO tool' it pings me right away. It’s saved me so much time and helped me hop into threads while they’re still fresh.
If you’re tired of manual digging and want to catch those conversations early, I’d really recommend giving it a look.
It’s free to start and super simple to set up.
Website:
pulseofreddit.com
Perfect!
Perfect! I'm trying this out
Give a try to my Reddit Extension. It's a Chrome extension called Pulse of Reddit that basically acts like my own alert system for Reddit.
Anytime someone posts something with keywords I care about like 'looking for a designer' or 'best SEO tool' it pings me right away. It’s saved me so much time and helped me hop into threads while they’re still fresh.
If you’re tired of manual digging and want to catch those conversations early, I’d really recommend giving it a look.
It’s free to start and super simple to set up.
Website:
pulseofreddit.com
Good
I love your boldness, how is it going so far?
Cool
Praveen, Give a try to my Reddit Extension. It's a Chrome extension called Pulse of Reddit that basically acts like my own alert system for Reddit.
Anytime someone posts something with keywords I care about like 'looking for a designer' or 'best SEO tool' it pings me right away. It’s saved me so much time and helped me hop into threads while they’re still fresh.
If you’re tired of manual digging and want to catch those conversations early, I’d really recommend giving it a look.
It’s free to start and super simple to set up.
Website:
pulseofreddit.com
It really cool, build a SaaS that helps HVAC contractors fill for RPF. It been over three months I tried all marketing ways but no paying client
Give a try to my Reddit Extension. It's a Chrome extension called Pulse of Reddit that basically acts like my own alert system for Reddit.
Anytime someone posts something with keywords I care about like 'looking for a designer' or 'best SEO tool' it pings me right away. It’s saved me so much time and helped me hop into threads while they’re still fresh.
If you’re tired of manual digging and want to catch those conversations early, I’d really recommend giving it a look.
It’s free to start and super simple to set up.
Website:
pulseofreddit.com
What marketing strategy do you work on?
Give a try to my Reddit Extension. It's a Chrome extension called Pulse of Reddit that basically acts like my own alert system for Reddit.
Anytime someone posts something with keywords I care about like 'looking for a designer' or 'best SEO tool' it pings me right away. It’s saved me so much time and helped me hop into threads while they’re still fresh.
If you’re tired of manual digging and want to catch those conversations early, I’d really recommend giving it a look.
It’s free to start and super simple to set up.
Website:
pulseofreddit.com
Thanks
I built an MVP to visualize ideas from text + images — where does it confuse you?
Give a try to my Reddit Extension. It's a Chrome extension called Pulse of Reddit that basically acts like my own alert system for Reddit.
Anytime someone posts something with keywords I care about like 'looking for a designer' or 'best SEO tool' it pings me right away. It’s saved me so much time and helped me hop into threads while they’re still fresh.
If you’re tired of manual digging and want to catch those conversations early, I’d really recommend giving it a look.
It’s free to start and super simple to set up.
Website:
pulseofreddit.com
MORPHOICES and Ruh_R0 are asking the right questions - what actually worked?
For my B2B SaaS in the accounting space, the first 50 users came from exactly zero "growth hacking." It was:
Answering questions in relevant subreddits for weeks before ever mentioning I was building something. When someone finally asked "are you building this?" - that's when I knew there was interest.
LinkedIn connection requests to people who fit the ICP, with a genuine question about their workflow, not a pitch. Most didn't reply. The 10% who did became my first beta users.
One detailed post on Indie Hackers about a specific problem I solved (not the product, the problem). That got more inbound than anything else.
The pattern was: be useful first, build trust, let people discover you're building something. The moment you lead with "check out my tool" you've lost them.
When you’re really early it’s a good reminder of how fuzzy the line gets between sharing a lesson and selling.
I see this story a lot: founders frame distribution learnings as a story, but the story quietly turns into the pitch. The issue is not with the promotion itself, but with readers coming in for specifics and leaving with a workflow they could have read on a landing page.
One way I check the sanity of a post like this one is to ask: can at least one tactic be copied by someone without signing up or talking to anyone? If not, the worth is probably behind the product. Not in the post.
To get the first 100 users, what has consistently worked for people I know is much narrower.
One channel, not five.
One audience, not “indie devs”.
One thing that you can do every day.
Replying to existing threads that already indicate high intent, DMing people complaining about the problem directly, manually onboarding the first 10 users so patterns show up quickly.
When you were doing this early on, which step of the acquisition actually took the longest? Identifying the right individuals, initiating conversations, or transforming interest into usage? ~
Totally agree real, thoughtful conversation is hard to replace.
I ended up making a little Chrome extension called Pulse of Reddit that basically acts like my own alert system for Reddit.
Anytime someone posts something with keywords I care about like 'looking for a designer' or 'best SEO tool' it pings me right away. It’s saved me so much time and helped me hop into threads while they’re still fresh.
If you’re tired of manual digging and want to catch those conversations early, I’d really recommend giving it a look.
It’s free to start and super simple to set up.
Website:
pulseofreddit.com
This is interesting.
I signed up and tried some of it, though it not polished yet, needs lots of improvements, i tried generating leads or similar things but it suggested products of 4-5 years ago, but great job, such products do stand out definitely. I would say just some more improvement and it will blow!
I really liked the ui and the idea.
But a short product explainer video showing the flow would probably make it click much faster.
Give a try to my Reddit Extension. It's a Chrome extension called Pulse of Reddit that basically acts like my own alert system for Reddit.
Anytime someone posts something with keywords I care about like 'looking for a designer' or 'best SEO tool' it pings me right away. It’s saved me so much time and helped me hop into threads while they’re still fresh.
If you’re tired of manual digging and want to catch those conversations early, I’d really recommend giving it a look.
It’s free to start and super simple to set up.
Website:
pulseofreddit.com
Thank you for your positive feedback!
We are also adding instructional videos to help users understand and use the product. If you'd like, you can click "Book a Demo," and I would be happy to give you a demonstration.
That's great, and thats a good approach to make the users understand/believe and its useful and helpful for them (this will also help to target specific interested users too)
and yeah thanks for the free sign up itself, i explored more options and it feels you people worked a lot on them, just few areas i would suggest like you can add separate option or section for lead generation (although it gave me but as i said earlier it gave leads from 2020 which were not helpful, but its solvable and helpful),
and some more reviews you might get from other audience will help you solve/add features
Btw, if you guys need help with Explainer/demo/launch videos i do make them, will be happy to make it for your product.
Great initiative with Amplift! One thing I learned getting my first 100 users for Ascend - the real challenge isn't just traffic, it's converting that traffic into paying customers.
What worked for us: Instead of just driving visitors, we focused on helping creators monetize their existing audiences first. We built a monetization layer that lets operators/creators launch digital products in <24hrs with built-in affiliate revenue sharing (40% direct + 10% two-tier).
The key insight: Most indie hackers have audiences but struggle with product delivery, payment processing, and affiliate infrastructure. By solving those pain points, user acquisition became natural through word-of-mouth.
Happy to share more about what worked for our launch if helpful!
Totally agree real, thoughtful conversation is hard to replace.
I ended up making a little Chrome extension called Pulse of Reddit that basically acts like my own alert system for Reddit.
Anytime someone posts something with keywords I care about like 'looking for a designer' or 'best SEO tool' it pings me right away. It’s saved me so much time and helped me hop into threads while they’re still fresh.
If you’re tired of manual digging and want to catch those conversations early, I’d really recommend giving it a look.
It’s free to start and super simple to set up.
Website:
pulseofreddit.com
Great breakdown! I tried the “Reddit niche communities” trick for my AI video tool, but got banned from one sub (oops) for being too self-promotional.
Your tip about “solving a specific problem in comments” makes sense — I’ll switch to that. Have you ever tried sharing WIP (work in progress) updates for your product in these spaces? Wondering if that feels less salesy.
Give a try to my Reddit Extension. It's a Chrome extension called Pulse of Reddit that basically acts like my own alert system for Reddit.
Anytime someone posts something with keywords I care about like 'looking for a designer' or 'best SEO tool' it pings me right away. It’s saved me so much time and helped me hop into threads while they’re still fresh.
If you’re tired of manual digging and want to catch those conversations early, I’d really recommend giving it a look.
It’s free to start and super simple to set up.
Website:
pulseofreddit.com
I was curious and tried the link... but your product was not working yet for me... you should improove it first before trying some weird tricks to get yourself your first 100 users ;-) ! No-offense, but it's a bit disapointing
Give a try to my Reddit Extension. It's a Chrome extension called Pulse of Reddit that basically acts like my own alert system for Reddit.
Anytime someone posts something with keywords I care about like 'looking for a designer' or 'best SEO tool' it pings me right away. It’s saved me so much time and helped me hop into threads while they’re still fresh.
If you’re tired of manual digging and want to catch those conversations early, I’d really recommend giving it a look.
It’s free to start and super simple to set up.
Website:
pulseofreddit.com
The title was slightly misleading. As another mentioned, I was hoping you were going to mention some actual stories and learnings.
For my business what actually got me to my first 100 users was:
Give a try to my Reddit Extension. It's a Chrome extension called Pulse of Reddit that basically acts like my own alert system for Reddit.
Anytime someone posts something with keywords I care about like 'looking for a designer' or 'best SEO tool' it pings me right away. It’s saved me so much time and helped me hop into threads while they’re still fresh.
If you’re tired of manual digging and want to catch those conversations early, I’d really recommend giving it a look.
It’s free to start and super simple to set up.
Website:
pulseofreddit.com
The headline promises "$0 tactics that worked" but this is just a tool promo. MORPHOICES nailed it - where are the actual scrappy actions?
Here's what actually worked for me getting first users:
Most founders don't have a "user acquisition problem" - they have a clarity problem. Users don't understand what you do fast enough to care.
We're building voice agents that guide users through products in real-time (demogod.me) - basically eliminating that 10-second window where confusion kills conversion.
The best $0 tactic? Make it obvious what you do before asking for anything. Most tools solve distribution but ignore comprehension.
I might be missing something here, but I had difficulty seeing what actually worked here. ~
The posts that resonate the most are not ones about the tool but about the scrappy actions.
From where did the first 10 users originate?
What was a total failure?
Was that a surprise?
I follow a simple rule when sharing lessons.
Most likely, the story is too abstract if one cannot recreate a step without my product.
I’m interested how did you get your first users personally before building this?
Man, I was stuck in the same loop.
I ended up making a little Chrome extension called Pulse of Reddit that basically acts like my own alert system for Reddit. Anytime someone posts something with keywords I care about like 'looking for a designer' or 'best SEO tool' it pings me right away. It’s saved me so much time and helped me hop into threads while they’re still fresh.
If you’re tired of manual digging and want to catch those conversations early, I’d really recommend giving it a look. It’s free to start and super simple to set up.
Website:
pulseofreddit.com
I wanted to give this a go but here you say 20$ a month and in the product it says 69$ - why?
Tekfun, Give a try to my Reddit Extension. It's a Chrome extension called Pulse of Reddit that basically acts like my own alert system for Reddit.
Anytime someone posts something with keywords I care about like 'looking for a designer' or 'best SEO tool' it pings me right away. It’s saved me so much time and helped me hop into threads while they’re still fresh.
If you’re tired of manual digging and want to catch those conversations early, I’d really recommend giving it a look.
It’s free to start and super simple to set up.
Website:
pulseofreddit.com
$69 is the price for our product and services, which include a wide range of tools such as GEO targeting, influencer marketing, and social media content.
$20 is the price for our newly launched growth service, which is entirely managed by a real marketing team. You can customize the type of growth you need, and even purchase the desired level of exposure among your target audience.
Yes, i was wondering same thing
Hi, I've explained the problem; you can take a look.