Why is getting the first 100 users so much harder than building the app?
I met a founder recently who built a genuinely great SaaS. The tech was flawless. But after 4 months, he was stuck at 31 active users.
I’ve been talking to a lot of founders lately while building Entreel, and this is the most common pattern I see. We are brilliant builders, but we treat distribution like an afterthought.
We optimise for code quality while assuming distribution will just happen if the product is good enough. It’s a massive blind spot that kills good startups. (I actually just wrote a full breakdown of this on Hashnode: https://istiaq.hashnode.dev/the-ideas-in-startup-ecosystem).
For those of you who have crossed the 100-user mark, what was the one channel that actually worked for you?
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Honest answer from someone who has not crossed 100 users yet: the hardest part for me has not been attention or positioning. It is that I do not actually know any of the people I am supposedly building for.
Building feels productive because it needs no permission. Nobody has to say yes for me to ship another feature. Distribution is the opposite. It needs specific humans to choose to engage, and if you do not already know any of those humans, you are starting cold from zero.
I suspect that is why so many of us default to building. It is the part of the problem where we are not waiting on anyone else.
Curious if the founders you talk to match this, or whether the ones stuck at 31 users usually do know their audience and just have a channel problem.
Today building many products has become easier thanks to AI which means there are many more products available and competing for the attention of users. Attention is the new scare asset in today's world and this is part of why getting the first 100 users can feel so difficult. One needs to find ways to communicate enough value in a easy understandable way for users to try out something. And this is getting harder to the massive amount of supply of new (and often similar) products every day.
This is painfully accurate — distribution isn’t just a “next step,” it’s a different skillset entirely.
One thing I’ve noticed with early-stage products though:
Even when someone does discover it, if the name/positioning doesn’t stick, you kind of lose that user twice — once on discovery, and again on recall.
Especially in the first 100 users phase where every impression matters.
Curious — have you seen people remember/refer your product easily, or does it get lost after first touch?
Getting stuck at 31 users with "flawless tech" is the ultimate builder’s trap, Istiaq. We treat distribution as a secondary task, but in reality, the code is just the invitation—the distribution is the actual party.
I’m currently running a project in Tokyo (Tokyo Lore) that highlights high-utility tools and the builders who master the logic of distribution. Since you're already dissecting the "blind spots" that kill startups, entering your project could be the perfect way to turn your insights into a high-visibility case study while your odds are at their absolute peak.
Interesting. How exactly do you handle the distribution side for the projects you list?
Great question — that’s actually where most of the value is.
We don’t treat it like a listing. It’s more focused distribution:
→ small, curated cohort (so you’re not buried)
→ each project is positioned around a clear problem/use-case
→ we actively place it in relevant founder communities
→ and you get feedback on what actually gets attention vs ignored
So it’s less about traffic, more about getting in front of the right people and seeing real signals.
Since you’re already thinking deeply about distribution blind spots, your project could actually be a strong fit for this round.
It’s a $19 entry, and you get a structured analysis + entry into the live round (winner gets a Tokyo trip — flights + hotel). Round 01 is still early (100 cap), so visibility is better right now.
Tokyolore.com