How do you get the first 100 users for a niche product? (Mine is for retail traders)
I'm building SaveriX — an AI trading copilot that helps retail traders analyze the market faster. It combines news, technical signals, sentiment, portfolio insights, and risk guidance into one workflow so traders spend less time scanning and more time making informed decisions.
The product is almost ready, but distribution is proving much harder than building it.
I'm curious how other founders solved this:
How did you get your first 100 real users?
How did you earn trust before having testimonials or social proof?
Did you focus on communities, content, DMs, partnerships, or something else?
If you were launching a product for retail traders today, where would you look first?
I'd love to hear practical lessons from people who've actually gone through this.
Trading communities are a great call. The key is to be genuinely useful there first — share analysis or insights, don't lead with the product. Once they know you as the person who adds value, the product mention hits differently. Good luck with the launch!
The first 100 is too broad for a trading copilot. Pick one repeated decision, recruit 20 traders who already ask that exact question, and manually produce the combined news, signal, and risk view for a week. Trust comes from showing sources, confidence, and what would falsify the analysis, not from feature breadth.
Thanks, this is really helpful. I think I may have been describing SaveriX too broadly as an "AI trading copilot." The strongest feedback I've received so far is actually around risk discipline and portfolio-aware decision making, not the number of features. I like your point about earning trust through evidence rather than feature breadth. That's something I'm going to focus on as I start onboarding early traders.
“Risk discipline” gives you a measurable onboarding promise. Ask each early trader to log one planned trade and the rule that should invalidate it, then judge SaveriX on whether it catches the breach before execution, not whether its market call was right. That keeps trust from collapsing into hindsight P&L.
That's a really interesting way to frame it. I hadn't thought about separating "catching a rule breach" from "being right about the market." That's actually much closer to what I'm trying to build. Thanks for the perspective!
Great question. I ran into the same wall with my tool — spent €150 on Google Ads, got 0 users. What actually worked: finding where traders already hang out and becoming part of those conversations. For retail traders, try r/algotrading, TradingView ideas section, or Discord communities. The first 100 users are about earning trust one conversation at a time, not running campaigns.
Thanks for sharing this. That's really helpful.
I'm also realizing that building the product was easier than finding the first users. I'll spend more time engaging in trading communities instead of thinking about paid acquisition this early.
Appreciate the suggestions!