MVP is done. Now time to get the first 100 users
Hello! Hackers!
I just completed my MVP and am now ready to acquire the first 100 users.
What's your first tactic?
I will use the Carrd for a landing page and also consider going on the Product Hunt path.
How did you guys approach the idea of acquiring the first 100 users?
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I just touched 500 users for MyCheckins. I'm just talking about sign-ups here, not DAUs.
We're a Slack-bot for remote teams. I crossed the 100 users mark after signing up ~5 teams for the beta program.
To get these first 100 users, I exclusively relied on cold outreach.
One part of it was over email, the other was using Slack communities.
Both have terrible conversions rates. Around 3-4% at their best.
I decided to stick with this because it was the fastest feedback loop I found to improve the product and the pitch. One-on-one interactions with customers and non-stop rejection forces you to quickly see what's working and what isn't and adapt accordingly.
I'm still doing this. The plan is to onboard the first 30-50 teams this way - with 1:1 personalized interactions. It's the best way to learn what users want and iterate.
It all depends on what your product is, but the most common paths that I've seen hackers take to hit the first 100 customers mark are:
Writing SEO content along with social media marketing is a way to get customers.
1.) cold outreach
2.) social media marketing
3.) SEO
Hello Mike! Can you suggest some free(&paid) tools for cold outreach?
Just assume I don't know anything.
Hey there!
While I was working on my second start up Gylow (Esports app) we looked for gaming communities online and made friends with a few people who really loved the product. We scouted Instagram, Discord, & Reddit but what worked best was to go Instagram pages of those gaming cafes and reach out to the people who would actively comment under each post asking for tournaments or find the ones who engaged the most.
We did this for 2/3 weeks and within the first month we had 1000+ users using our product!
Would def say find out where your community lives and engage with them.
Nice idea.
How did you find the Instagram pages of the gaming cafes? Do you have some advices to do some good research of people/accounts on Instagram?
So we started off quite simple
We literally typed gaming cafes in Dubai on Google & got around 5/10 ( assumed these were the best )
Then we went to their insta pages & looked at the hashtags they used, the people they followed, the people or things they tagged, & the people who commented on their posts.
Once we had this, then we started started doing this for all cafes & within a few days you’d start seeing a few common names either being followed ( the most popular in the communities) or the ones commenting below each cafes post & you’d know these are the people/champions you’d reach out to.
Also, I’d say don’t sell your product. We would first ask them what they believed the community needed & how we could help the community thrive. We’d hear what they have to say & then slowly start talking about what we were building. You’ll have some people who’ll ignore you ( very normal, so don’t feel bad when this happens ) & you’ll have a handful who believe in what you build. They are the ones who usually help you get the rest.
We also did the same thing with cafes. Got the list, asked them their problems, & said we can solve this.
Gylow was a B2C business so it works differently compared to B2B ones.
Im doing a B2B one right now but happy to share my learnings & customer out reach tricks from here too!
Awesome, thank you for your reply!
You're welcome!
what are you working on atm?
1980.gg a link-in-bio tool for esports :)
Just signed up to it!
We used reddit "allowed promoted posts" (we were targetting Twitch streamers, and got 800 + upvotes on one of our posts -- it also gave us validation that our model worked).
FB and Google ads worked a bit, but feedback was not so easy to get and traffic was less viral.
If you find a community that allows posting (or posting if you give a bit of money), it can do magic.
Good luck! Care to share a link of your product?
I would advise against a Product Hunt launch until you have validated the idea and tested your landing page.
It would be a waste otherwise.
SEO. If you need help, let me know.
We looked for people within our network that could benefit from using the product, which made it hard for them to turn us down because we already knew each other. To make sure that wasn’t the primary reason for them to say yes though, we charged them a flat rate of €1000 for a year (paid upfront).
In the end there’s no one size fits all approach, because it depends on what you sell and where your customers hang out.
This is the very first article I wrote on my blog. Quick 7 minute read.
https://veonr.com/blog/how-to-find-your-first-customers
Let me know if you find it useful 😊
Congratulations!
My personal top 2 tips for the long run are:
Hello Mudassir, I think you can use slack channels. If your target audience have a slack channel, that is important. We forget this method. Actually, slack channels is real user because there are power user. If your product solves a problem, it can be grown by word of mouth.
I'm building https://www.unblokd.com/ and about two weeks ago I got my first email!
Since then, I've been trying to grow that list to 100.
I wouldn't say there's any formula. Just keep posting, talking about it, here, on Reddit, where your target audience usually spends time.
Mine's not out of private beta, so I wouldn't start talking about it on Product Hunt. But once it's in a good place, will definitely post about it there.
Most places where I posted didn't get any reactions. And it's not just mine, most communities dedicated to product feedback are not really that active. On some I've spent a lot of time offering people feedback hoping they'd offer it back, never happens. Places where entrepreneurs hang are better for that purpose (r/Entrepreneurs for eg.)
Post your landing page, would love to see it!
Hey,
Congrats on completing the MVP, must feel great to finish this step and continue to the next one :)
Me and my partner are currently working on:
You can read my post about our soft launch I shared insights there.
About product hunt, I would wait a bit before releasing there, you can get few customers and collect feedback from them and then improve the product before jumping right ahead to product hunt.
Good Luck 🤞
I’m currently asking potential customers to try out my product and give feedback.
My hope is to:
Make my product better and get market product fit before I spend a ton of time on growth (which will be cold outreach in my situation)
Have those same prospects become members at a discounted rate and ask if they know anyone else who might be interested in my product.
This is cool, let me go to those facebook groups and ask them around and see if they join my product at first place.
My first tactic is before writing the 1st line of code, assume I've finished the product and find out where the channels are to get my 1st 100 users.
If I can find some users actively looking for my product, there is a market definitely
Hey there!
Good job, your first step is completed!
Now, just go aggressive, and good luck finding your place under the sun!
Regarding the first steps in the growth process - I would suggest you to try Howitzer.co - a cold outreach tool for Reddit, that allows you to find your potential leads on Reddit, and send personalized Reddit DMs (with 40-45% average response rate).
I know it's a kind-of-a shameless plug, but I truly believe that if your product is part of a specific niche, then Reddit is the go-to place for you (huge ROI).
Howitzer.co can help you to find your first customers and 'validate your MVP', the same way it helped us, and the same way it helped bunch of other entrepreneurs.
Some other tactics I would suggest:
Good luck!
Hit me up if you have any questions about Reddit or Howitzer
Manual contact of potential users. Not scalable and time consuming but unbeatable to attract your first users.
I notably did that for Toornament.com my previous startup with a lot of success.
It also a key strategy mentioned by Sahil the Gumroad founder in his book "The Minimalist Entrepreneur"
Thank you guys, here is my website which I am about to launch https://accessmyphotos.carrd.co/
Does it make sense that what I am offering?