What are you building? How did you get your first 100 users?

Building Prospectss.com - Got my first few hundred users from IH & FB Groups.
Right now there are around 33k users. Got almost all of them via Google Search & Chrome Store!

Hi Silus! I'm building Sidekick.

The biggest source of generating traffic is Reddit. I actively participate on relevant subreddit communities. I try to answer 3 questions or participate in 3 conversations every day. I only promote when someone specifically asks for a product like Sidekick. It's brought in a lot of new users!

Reddit and listing on BetaList brought in our first 100 users!

Congrats, @silus151. It's a significant milestone to get to!

I am part of the team at kinde.com - Building an infrastructure platform for SaaS teams. And we are on the journey to give them authentication, user management, feature flags and billing all in one place.

We got our first 100+ users by working closely with startup accelerators and running thought leadership presentations to their community. As well as launching on Product Hunt.

Building Vistaly.com – product strategy/discovery visualization & collaboration.

We got our first 100 users from LI & various slack communities mainly. Some Reddit too.

I am not building anything as such, I own a marketing and consulting firm and here I am just in the community giving advice to people who could use it.

As to what you have asked in the post, I'd say first of all get yourself listed on as many tools listing and review platforms as possible, and your social media such as LinkedIn along with a Wikipedia page should be up and running. Once you created all of this, you can start with the main thing because people will search about you after that and all this is to make sure they know you're a legitimate company.
The "main thing" I referred to here was cold outreach. Cold emailing is really not given as much credit as it should get, you can go through the web and will find evidence that it is a great strategy almost everywhere. You can use a prospecting tool like Aeroleads to find potential clients in the niche you're addressing with your product and an email sequencing tool like MailChimp to automate the email outreach process, just make sure that your email content is valuable and form a good lead nurturing strategy. My suggestion would be to target people in the age group of 20-35 (if your product concerns this group at all) because this segment is what marketers call something like 'the daredevils' while doing market segmentation because they are not afraid/reluctant to test out new products.
Once start sending thousands of emails every few days, people will automatically start searching for you and the interested ones will definitely use your product.

Working on https://churnfree.com/ this tool will help the SaaS, e-commerce and membership business to reduce their churn rate and increase their LTV for the growth of their business.

Got the initial clients from the IH, Quora and Google.

Draftss.com - Design, Video & Development Requests under one roof at a flat rate. Your own offshore Design & Developer team on Subscription. Have worked with 1000+ clients in the last 4 years.

Haha! It's all crazy, frenzy building & maintaining them!
<a href="https://www.checkoutfirst.com">thermal socks!</a>

Congratulations!

I'm currently building https://krumzi.com and today we just crossed the 500 registrations border!
We are mostly generating traffic by engaging on Reddit and Twitter, with the appropriate communities. More specifically, we have a recruitment platform so we are posting in the job related communities on Reddit and replying to tweets about job boards and stuff. After that, it's up to the product, but for us it's been working great lately :)

Congrats on first 100 users, i recently build Webstore: a play store for Progressive web apps (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.webstore)

We are building Stemble [https://stemble.xyz]. Before writing even a single line of code, I wrote a post on the r/PhysicsStudent subreddit & gained over 35+ members on our discord waitlist.

We started sharing on various subreddits, IH, Hacker News, SUS Forum, etc & gained a lot of organic traffic from there. We've over 160 members now on our discord server.

MonitUp.com increases the productivity of your teams and freelancers with employee monitoring.

But I still have 15 users, it will take some time to reach 100 users :(

Have a nice tale, and I appreciate how helpful this one has been to me. In an effort to market my company, I also create a website and maintain my own website (https://www.countryclubautospa.com/) Also, please let me know if bought or free SEO is more effective.

Getting first 100 users are always difficult but I'm sure after it, you know what you need to do at first place.

I'm building Filma, a video editing app for Iphone, iPad and Mac.

I started the app only on iPad through an MVP with lots of analytics and feedback mechanisms to build it based on user requests.

It took around a year to reach the very first 100 customers and after launching on iPhone and Mac on last year, we are now at 45k+ downloads and 200 monthly subscriptions (plus many more non paid users).

To be honest, all the growth has been organic (app store search and social media sharing). I made a release almost weekly and posted a video about the new features or improvements on each of those releases on IG, Facebook, TikTok, Youtube and Twitter.

It's now time for us to put more efforts on things like SEO, ASO and advertising, as the feedback and conversion rates are pretty good, not as good as our budget for that :)

Hope your growth keeps going up! Stay strong and keep building!
https://filma.app

working on https://angeleclipse.io and most of my beta testers are from me DMing on Reddit.

Twitter custom audience list is a good way to do this.
This is the Holy Grail.

Very low cost, very high conversion
and your right niche audience.

searches and lists according to the keywords (job titles and interests) written in the profile bio.

createtargetaudience.com

Just try it

The best source to generate traffic from social media, like Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, etc

I'm building ShopMe (www.getshopme.com) - an app that helps you combine all of your e-commerce wishlists into one. Got my first 100 through friends, friends of friends, and people from my co-working space!

I am building KodyTools.com - Its a web project to have sort of tools including calculators, converters, hash generators, measurement units converter, etc.. Currently, it has 300+ tools and still adding more it. Traffic is close to none since its the beginning stage. Any feedback is appreciated.

I am building something inspired by indiehackers, but.. probably not very commercializable: https://fastwatermark.com for adding watermarks to images right in your browser - super-fast and images never leave your computer.

There's very basic, but well working version there. It can add just a textual image. I just love building small tools, yet tend to be doing what I like to build, not what market needs. This particular project can be relatively easily improved to having image-supporting watermarks, custom profiles, multiple images at once and so on, but which community would pay for it?

What do you guys do in such cases? Go and find a nich market for what you loved to make or just keep it in "for own fun" category?

If you want to check out how the top ranked producthunt launches got their next 100 users, I got you.
https://curatedfunding.gumroad.com/l/productscout

Congrats on reaching 100! It's a huge milestone :) Got our first 100 users for https://getwaitlist.com from a Product Hunt launch -- however, it didn't convert into active users right away and it took a few months to reach more healthy conversion from signup to usage.

Hey - I built weexpire.org, an opensource tool for creating emergency notes that can be read by your trusted contacts only after your death. Got the first 100 users from Reddit and HN.

@silus151 ... I have no idea how many users we have had over the past few years. Our estimate is between 2K to 4K "rock skippers" have tried us out. That's because our Proof-of-Concept site has been around for that long (Calendar Snack) and use of it has been free. In 2023 going to turn it into some level of revenue generation - but probably a very low price.

As far as how those "users" found us, it's been all organic search - through our website, social media posts, LinkedIn posts, Youtube videos, etc. We've never really focused on SEO, but we rank pretty high on some search phrases - so that helps.

I say POC because what we are really building is a Headless Calendaring Server that can be used to send calendar invitations to anyone with an email address, and count the RSVPs received. So, it's taken us several years to actually be able to do that - and we believe 2023 will the year we start selling to large accounts and OEMs to leverage the function of Calendar Invitations/RSVPs within their own marketing or applications.

the POS is https://app.calendarsnack.com and the platform is https://31events.com

We are working on era.sh - a markdown note-taking tool for developers.
It's currently in beta and we have around 300 users which we gained through IH, Twitter, word of mouth from colleague and friends and other channels.

Currently building Pacekit.co ! It let's you build LinkedIn carousels faster, without a design editor.

I got my first 100 beta users via Facebook groups and private communities.

I am building CustomerStoryHub so that any startup can share success stories in a space designed exclusively for that.

What do you think?
Do you use this type of content in your content marketing strategies?

I'm building a few things:
kocobee -> Start validating your products in minutes, not weeks
bizideas -> Generate customized profitable business ideas w/ ai
delete.ink -> Automatically removes tattoos from images in seconds with AI

I'm building https://cadrelo.com/ right now. It's a platform that helps teams stay in sync. Trying to create animated gif posts on linkedin, exchanging ideas with community here, did some reddit posts, blogs etc. Tbh I've enjoyed platforms like this and seeing what other people are doing.

Most popular one is https://palettolithic.com/

Its easy to create harmonized color palette by selecting only one color. It generates code for JavaScript object, bootstrap and CSS variables. Can be use for tailwindcss, Chakra, Mantine and many other frameworks.

I posted in GitHub repository, wrote article on dev.to and Reddit. I don't promote enough cause I'm always working on something else.

Can you describe how did you engage without being spammy?

I'm building a social media management tool (https://socialbu.com). I got my initial users from posting about it on social media communities, quora answers, and DM's like you.

I'm building https://checkthe.website.com/ free uptime monitoring service for personal and commercial projects.

Currently I have 78 users and 700+ websites added. It's enjoy to watch other people when they use my product.

Reddit is the main source of traffic generation. I take part in related subreddit communities actively. Every day, I attempt to respond to three questions or take part in three conversations. I only advertise when a product like Sidekick is (specifically) requested. It has attracted numerous new users.(https://skintes.com/collections/ageless-image-skincare)

I'm building fuzen.io - a no-code platform to help non-tech founders build simple business process automation apps (CRM, Project Management, Email Marketing etc.)

Initially, I built a few apps on the platform myself and sold those to SMEs around the world with content marketing and SEO.

I built atomiclife.app and got 50 users so far from producthunt launch. Working on V2 and intend to a second launch. Currently active in reddit and twitter to get more users.

Congratulations on your first 100 users. That's a great milestone achievement. You should pride yourself and keep going. I am working on apexpad.app/lp. it's collaborative coding platform for salesforce apex programming. It's in beta at this point. I am welcoming beta users, but also working on enhancing the features and fixing some bugs.

I'm building VCvsME.com - which is a pitch deck evaluation, and networking website for entrepreneurs and investors. We brand new! Our initial users are simply friends and associates of mine (the founder) so that's nothing too revolutionary. But to scale, I plan to just be consistent in terms of reaching out to folks who might benefit and provide a quality service. :)

Getting on the front page of Hacker News and DM'ing on Reddit/LinkedIn has gotten us the majority of our early users. If you're having trouble getting your first users, my advice to you is to stay headstrong and Try All The Things. Your product is useful, so don't be afraid to reach out to your ideal user demographic and tell them why. Where do your users spend time/hang out? Go where your users are. If nothing works, perhaps consider pivoting to something different after you understand why it's not working. Been there, done that. Keep going, you can do it!

In case anyone is curious, I'm building rentaflop (https://rentaflop.com/?ref=indiehackers). We're a crowdsourced cloud render farm where Blender artists leverage graphics cards from people around the world when they’re not using them. When 3D artists need to create an animation, instead of lowering the quality of their work to reduce render times or paying thousands to buy or rent the hardware required, they can get fast and affordable rendering without compromising on quality. If you're a Blender 3D user, give us a try!

I'm building a quiz app, I hope to help a lot of people with education activities.

I am building a resume builder, we just added new templates, check it out https://sharecv.info/

Outstatic.com - Pre-launch has over 50 people on the waiting list. Created a simple page and posted on related forums.

Entrepreneur List -
A curated library of entrepreneurship knowledge to help entrepreneurs grow a business. Personally handpicked list of the world-class entrepreneurs, high-quality courses and ebooks to learn from.

I got the first 250 users from launching on Product Hunt.

Hey, I'm Ankur. Building https://longshot.ai/. An end to end platform to research, generate, optimize long form content.

We noticed in early '21 that AI was amazing at creating content, but creating "good" long form content was (is) still highly nontrivial. We extra focus on auethticity, factual accuracy, freshness (with factchecker, custom AI etc).

We got our first 30 (paid) or so users from FB groups. Rest by launching a small lifetime deal. This was April -June '21.

I have built Share Predictions (offering tools for traders in stock markets).
https://www.sharepredictions.com/
First 100 users came mainly from Reddit and Product Hunt. Then my Reddit account is permanently banned. You may guess why... :)

I'm creating JumpRoom.io - A side-by-side co-working platform for remote and hybrid teams.

All of my initial beta users have been coming from direct outreach on LinkedIn. Planning on doing a larger beta launch soon though. :-)

I'm building https://sourcee.app - connecting you with #JournoRequest - Lightning Fast ⚡

All my initial users have come from very targeting Twitter DMs. The plan is to scale this up and cast the net a bit further up the funnel.

Hi there! I'm working on kapustin.co - Ready-to-use free illustrations + custom solutions for startup owners, SaaS products, and web agencies.

It was very easy to get the first users, I did a lot of freebies on the site and started writing about it on Twitter, IH and create launch on PH :)

I am building a cannabis edtech platform to help more black and brown entrepreneurs navigate the cannabis industry. I got my first 100 users for our MVP app from out 4K user waitlist. My waitlist was created using Twitter and viral tweets.

Hi Silus, congrats on the journey. I got my first 100 for https://geeksandexperts.com/ from word of mouth, referrals and platforms like Twitter and Indie Hackers. However, I am yet to convert them into paying customers.

I'm building https://www.internaltemperature.com/ to be the world's largest website for seeing internal temperature on any meat.

Currently at 30 monthly users but looking to get to 100 next month!

I'm building https://artifiction.io

Best way I've found so far is to find StackOverflow questions asking how to solve similar problems, and then reach out directly to the OP.

Working on independentwp.com and we get our users through the WordPress plugin repository. It's very hard to get anyone to see a new product, and having some kind of marketplace to jump-start acquisition is extremely helpful.

I'm building onsleek.com - lets you checkout with just 1 click at stores like Best Buy & Gap and earn cashback.
We got our first 100 users from friends+family, then Product Hunt provided an awesome boost. Now just hitting 1k and looking for more organic channels! We haven't found success on Reddit yet unfortunately

I am building tryzazu.com , influencer marketing platform.

I have a long list of leads yet to contact, and trying to figure out what is the best way to do so. I want to avoid reaching their spam folders

Building https://newgrain.app/ - a platform for the film photography community. Got my first 100 users thanks to Reddit, on the r/analogcommunity subreddit! Reddit is a gold mine for community-oriented startups.
Newgrain now has over 4000 users; most of came from our Instagram account afterwards.

NotionInvoice.com. Search traffic.

I'm building [yet another] digital business card site.
In very very early stage and came here to learn how you guys grew the first audience.
Here's my card: zuz.to/liv.

Building https://vitaely.me/ (turn your Linkedin profile into a landing page in 2 minutes)

In terms of sign ups (free sign ups I might add), its cliche but Product Hunt got me around 350 users in about a week.

I'm building AI2sql that helps people write SQL in seconds.

I got my first 100 users by posting about the project on Twitter and Reddit.