You Don’t Need a Community to Launch — Here’s How I Got My First Users Anyway
Hey Indie Hackers 👋
I’m Julien, founder of Linkeme, a SaaS that automates your entire social media workflow — from idea to image to scheduled post.
When I launched, I had no audience.
No Twitter/X followers.
No Indie Hackers following.
No community waiting for “day one.”
Just a working MVP… and a deep understanding of one problem:
💬 “I don’t have time to post on LinkedIn, even though I know I should.”
That’s it. That was my wedge.
Here’s how I found my first 10 paying users, without a single blog post or build-in-public campaign:
1. I used my existing network — even if it was small
I messaged people I’d worked with before. A few founders I’d consulted for. A few folks I saw posting inconsistently.
I didn’t pitch. I just said:
“Hey — I built something for this problem. Want to try it for free?”
2. I led with results, not features
I didn’t show GPT prompts or explain how we generate images.
I sent them one of my own recent posts and said:
“This took me 2 minutes thanks to the tool.”
That was enough.
3. I onboarded manually (and fast)
Every early user got a quick Loom or 1:1 walkthrough.
I learned more in 3 conversations than from 20 survey replies.
And those same users are still with us months later.
4. I charged early — even just a little
Our first paying users paid €15/month.
But that changed the tone: they gave more honest feedback, asked better questions, and treated Linkeme as a real solution, not just a free tool.
The truth:
You don’t need a community to launch.
You need a specific problem, a real solution, and a few direct conversations.
The rest comes later.
If you’re in the early stage — happy to share more about what worked and what didn’t.
Let me know what stage you’re in — and what you’re struggling with most right now.
Julien
Struggling at same phase of getting users onboard
Great strategies
Hi Julien, Thanks for sharing this, it's helpful - a quick question - when you say you reached out to people asking to try out your tool for free, and then early customers paying 15 euros - how did you start getting these early customers (inbound)? source of traffic?
Really inspiring, Julien! 🙌
Proof that solving a clear, painful problem beats having a huge following. Love how you leaned into a real user need instead of waiting for the perfect launch conditions. Curious to hear more about your first outreach steps cold DMs, communities, LinkedIn?
Thanks for sharing so openly big value here 💪
Proof that solving a clear, painful problem beats having a huge following. Love how you leaned into a real user need instead of waiting for perfect launch conditions.
Let me know if you want to tailor this more for a specific platform like Twitter/X, LinkedIn, or email.
For first outreach, I skipped waiting for “perfect” and just started:
Cold DMs: I personalized every message based on the person’s current challenges (often pulled from their tweets or posts). I didn’t pitch—just asked thoughtful questions and shared early value.
Communities: I joined niche Slack groups, subreddits, and Discords where my target users hung out. Instead of self-promoting, I just helped people. That built credibility fast.
LinkedIn: Shared my journey in real time, posted problems I was solving, and asked for feedback. That transparency brought in early users who wanted to be part of the build.
It wasn’t about being loud. It was about being useful. Happy to go deeper on what worked if helpful.
Hey Julien,
thanks for the insights. I'm currently at the same stage where I have a working MVP of my app Lunaps and want to reach first users to get feedback.
My idea was to publish on platforms like this to get valuable feedback from the builders community.
I was actually struggling to to get my app to a stage where I was fine with publishing, even if there were still small things that I would like to improve.
I think now it's important to get the first users and feedback. Thanks for sharing your experience, I really appreciate it!
Getting your first paid user without entering the SEO and digital marketing landscape is impressive. You're an inspiration to many :)
Thats a old school approch but still very effective . Like how the salesman used to sell each person .
Looking more from you Julien .
нормально ти навалюєш тіп!
An entrepreneur's strongest investor is always their belief in themselves and in what they've created. You’ve reached this success by staying true to that belief — now it’s time to take things even further. Wishing you continued success on this journey.
You didn’t have a community, true. But at least you had some kind of personal network.
As an indie maker with a day job, it’s actually pretty tricky to tap into your network, sometimes you’d rather stay under the radar for a while.
I often wonder how others handle that: When do you go public with what you’re building? How do you separate it from your professional life if needed?
Your tips really resonate, I’m just not sure how much of it I can apply to my own project yet.
this is cool ,I was just thinking about where to start, Thank you)
Hi, Julien,
Early on you mentioned 1:1 walkthroughs for early onboarding. What does your onboarding look like now?
Sarah
I don’t have big traction or a marketing engine, but I did build something that solves a real developer pain. Doing it all on free-tier services has made it harder — but not impossible. Sometimes, all you need is persistence and a clean solution.