How I got my first 33 paying customers for my SaaS
I’ve been working on my product, Refgrow, for about 9 months now. It’s a simple way to add an affiliate/referral program directly inside your SaaS.
I’ve tried launching it 3 times, different positioning, even a different name in the early days. The first two launches barely brought any sales. The third one worked much better.
Here’s exactly how I got my first 33 paying users (15 lifetime deals + 18 subscriptions):
1. Lifetime deals + affiliates
One affiliate joined my program early, and without me asking, shared a lifetime deal in his Facebook group. That single action brought in a big chunk of my first sales.
I also posted the deal in several other niche FB groups.
2. Product Hunt launch
My third launch was on Product Hunt. It didn’t go viral, but it gave me enough visibility to get a few paying customers and more affiliates interested.
3. Removing lifetime deals
After those first 15 customers, I stopped offering LTDs and focused only on subscriptions. Growth since then has been slower, but more stable.
4. Ongoing marketing experiments
Free channels: Reddit, Indie Hackers, Twitter/LinkedIn/Threads content
Cold outreach via DMs
Small Google/Facebook ad tests (no big wins there)
A few lessons so far:
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Affiliates can be a huge growth lever if you make it easy for them to start promoting
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Paid ads without a clear funnel are just donations to Google/Meta
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Launches can be useful even without big spikes, they’re great for getting in front of the right audience
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Momentum builds slowly, but it does build if you keep showing up
I’m still figuring out my best growth channel, but I’m glad I didn’t quit after those early failed launches.
If you’re trying to get your first paying users, focus on getting visible in small, relevant communities and making it super easy for others to promote you, sometimes that one affiliate or one small group post can change everything.
What was your first growth channel that actually worked? Curious to see how different it is from mine.
Removing Lifetime deals a sharp business move. Even though the money flow would be no sweat, but in the long run, those customers aren't the ideal customers. They will demand features very far fetched that will eventually derail you from the initial product vision.
Alex, this is such a solid example of persistence paying off in SaaS growth 🚀.
From a SaaS Scaling & Go-to-Market Strategy lens, three takeaways stand out:
1️⃣ Leverage Micro-Influence for Early PMF Signals – That one affiliate proves how small, trusted communities can outperform big ad spends when trust is already built.
2️⃣ Iterative Launching is a Growth Engine – Each launch, even if “small,” is data. The shift from LTD to subscriptions shows the importance of aligning pricing with long-term sustainability.
3️⃣ Channel Testing with Discipline – Free community marketing + targeted outreach is gold for early-stage SaaS when budgets are tight. Avoid scaling paid ads until you have a proven funnel.
Your journey reinforces what I tell founders as a Scaling Expert — PMF isn’t a one-shot event, it’s the result of consistent testing, feedback, and focus.
#SaaSScaling #SaaSCoaching #GoToMarketStrategy #ScalingExpert #ProductMarketFit #PMFAdvisor
This is really great, I would like to ask a question. Why did saas product stop doing affiliate programs?. It used to be a common thing two or three years ago, If I am correct.
Maybe you could get more growth through affiliate links? :D
This is a great, super honest post, Alex. Congrats on pushing through those first two launches – that takes real grit.
What really stands out to me is how all your successful channels (the affiliate, the FB groups, Product Hunt) all funnelled people to one critical place: your landing page. It's a great reminder that all that hard work to get visible still relies on the landing page to do the final job of converting that traffic.
It really shows that having a clear, high-converting page is the engine that makes all other marketing efforts actually work.
Congrats on the hard-earned momentum!