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56 Comments

We reached $1 million in revenue! Here are my 21 lessons to get the first 10 customers👇

  1. 3

    Just been reading through all your twitter threads and theres so much value in there. Thanks for putting all this together!

    1. 1

      Thanks! Glad you found them helpful :)

  2. 2

    This is fantastic!! How long did it take you to get your first 10 customers and how did retain them?

    1. 1

      Thanks Prateek - it did take us a good 3-4 months, I think.

      We did make mistakes so we did lose some clients. Retaining them and over time getting loads of referrals from customers was by doing the basics right - giving them really good talent with as little involvement from them as possible.

      We can still improve and that's what we are focusing on. But it made one thing clear - a startup doesn't need too many frills; it just needs to consistently deliver on the main promise it makes, especially in B2B.

      1. 1

        Awesome! I love this post and have reshared it on linkedin and product hunt. Congratulations on your success!

  3. 2

    Hello, you can read it here:

    https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1379656690740568067.html

    Thanks to Thread Read App.

  4. 2

    Interesting, thanks for sharing!

  5. 1

    Great read, thanks for sharing! Just got our first 10 customers from our Product Hunt launch 🙌

    1. 2

      Thanks and congrats!

  6. 1

    Can you give an estimate of your net income ?

  7. 1

    These are really great insights and practical tactics. I completely agree...

    Start with 1. Get to 10.

    Learn and iterate before scaling

    Congrats

  8. 1

    Awesome! Thanks Karthik :)

  9. 1

    wow!! congrats!

  10. 1

    Amazing! thanks for sharing!

  11. 1

    Thanks for sharing. Is there a thread on how you got the idea/the process of building a MVP / tech stack you used etc ? Also, what was the burn rate until you landed your first customer and how did you survive this period ?

    1. 1

      There's a ton going on in the nocode space. Consider bubble.io - or search for "no code platform"

      Firebase is a must these days, along with Javascript-based front and backend (React/Angular/Vue) and (Node/Typescript)

      Other platforms, languages and tools are great still if you already know them..

      Python? Go? .Net? Azure? AWS? Heroku? MangoDB? MySQL? Sure...

      Just build something and see if it solves the problem your potential customers have

  12. 1

    Great read, and thanks for the advice! Going to have to apply a lot of this to my business

    1. 1

      All the best, Anthony!

  13. 1

    Thank you for sharing. Learning so much from this.

    1. 1

      Cheers, glad to hear that!

  14. 1

    Congrats, and thanks for the twitter thread!

    It's reassuring to see advice that we think we're actively taking, and also to know that it's a slow process, so we could be on the right track.

    Only downside is hearing about personal networks and individual outreach - that's the last thing developers want to do! :-P

    1. 1

      lol. But, we gotta eat, so hunting it is :D

    2. 1

      Haha, can imagine!

  15. 1

    Thanks so much for this, Karthik! Your Twitter has been a wealth of similarly helpful info in recent weeks. Much appreciated, and congratulations on your success!

    1. 1

      Wow, thanks Keith :)

  16. 1

    Thank you for taking the time to share this!

  17. 1

    These threads are really good

  18. 1

    That's very insightful, thanks!!
    About whether it's worth doing paid marketing very early, I totally agree with you: it might be too expensive and you might not know already which keywords to promote... BUT it's also a good way to try some keywords before spending months writing content for organic SEO...

    1. 2

      Cheers!

      Sure, you are right! If one has the money to do so, for sure, it is worth a shot.

      In my experience (with Google Ads specifically), I felt that it had too many moving parts and it was often very tough to be sure where things were breaking.

      1. 1

        I agree that it's quite hard to really make the most of Google Ads. I'm struggling myself too...

  19. 1

    hi - thanks for sharing.

    What do you think of promoting through popular, domain-related blogs?

    1. 1

      If the article is in a news media website - even if not as big as Techcrunch, but one with a very good readership - then I think it does give a one-time shot of good leads.

      So, I would consider them also as a launch platform - but it is tough to get published in such publications unless you have a funding round, which isn't the case for most of us bootstrapped startups.

      However, if it is more like a guest post on a high domain authority blog, leads don't flow through very well. It can be considered more from an SEO boost to your website, rather than one-time shot of leads.

      1. 1

        hi - No, big blogs as techcrunch etc. are not reasonable to approach as this blog is very broad and not domain-specific.

        One (of many) marketing strategies mentioned here is "influencer marketing". Examples could be Twitter-influencers, blogs of the domain, ...
        E.g. what would it cost to get your product into the first organic search result in Google. This is mostly something like "7 best ways to solve xyz". I think most people use such curated overview to get a solution for a problem.

        But, as it seems, you didn't approach or consider that route. So, don't worry if you can't share from experience or this is a new thought :)

        1. 1

          hmm, understood.

          Indeed, I didn't try to get Flexiple listed on other domain blogs which have listicles through a paid route.

          However, I've been talking to my team about investing some money there. I do think you are right in terms of customers researching & discovering new solutions in such blogs.

          But as you mentioned, this isn't based on my experience, but more my hunch :)

          1. 1

            OK cool. Acceptance is a type of validation I can live with ;)

  20. 1

    Congrats, but you can make your story easier to read and copy a full text, instead of dozens of tweets...

    1. 5

      I mean he took the time to write out his exp. Just be grateful for him taking the time to share it and scroll to read? It’s honestly not that hard...

      1. 3

        It’s essentially 21 points/tips split into 21 tweets that are all contained in a singular page. It’s actually more organized that way imo

    2. 2

      Sure, will do that when I have some spare time to write one.

      1. -1

        This comment has been voted down. Click to show.

        1. 2

          Maybe you could do it for us?

        2. 1

          I think there are many apps for that already on Twitter such as the "Thread Reader" etc. Nevertheless, I'll do that sometime.

  21. 1

    Congrats on the milestone! And thanks for documenting this. It's super helpful for someone in my position (just launched) to keep the motivation and focus up.

    1. 1

      Thanks! Glad you found it helpful :)

  22. 1

    Using paid marketing early on is not a good idea.

    I feel validated on my inability to make paid marketing work is now. :)

    1. 1

      100%! We lost money there too :(

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