Launched "Startup First Users" on ProductHunt
by Frank HeijdenrijkHow did billion-dollar companies get their first users? Surprisingly, it's not much different than most companies do today.
Though you might think they started out with millions to get their first users, they often took small steps to get there.
As part of my free email course on Early User Growth, I went out and researched how successful companies got their first users.
And today I launched that collection on ProductHunt -> https://www.producthunt.com/posts/startup-first-users
Feel free to check it out, and if you enjoy it than an upvote is always appreciated.
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Just spend the morning reading through these. Awesome resource. Definitely something I will revisit.
People fall into the trap of copying big companies now. But if you're an Indie Hacker you'll learn far more by copying the techniques these companies used to get started in the first place.
Also some very nice "side project marketing" for Early User Growth!
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Thanks, Harry! Glad you liked it! I agree, I think most people go for so-called 'growth hacks' too quickly. Your first users should come in batches, not thousands at once - at least not for most products.
So that was my goal with this list: to show people that almost every company started out small, no matter how big they are today. If you're feeling small today, it does not mean you won't be able to grow into a bigger company someday.
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and it's already gaining momentum on ProductHunt!
Hope more hackers will see this and learn from the stories.-
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Yeah, it has done incredibly well on PH today
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Wow! This is an amazingly valuable tool. Thanks so much.
Would love to see some B2B and enterprise co's Something like Oracle, IBM, WorkDay, etc.
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Interesting idea. This captures a snippet of what companies did. I would like to see a deep-dive a bit more into that process.
Btw, the date for Facebook launch is incorrect incorrect. It should be 2004.
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Haven't responded this yet - but thanks for pointing out the FB launch date - changed it right away 5 days ago but never thanked you. So, again, appreciate you pointing it out :)
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I will read it in the next few days, I have upvoted it for now
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Thanks for upvoting it! Hope you like reading it ;)
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This will be a rocketship.
Getting early adopters is the main point of suffering for most of us indie hackers.
Thanks for helping with that.-
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Thanks for the comment - glad to hear that you liked it!
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Upvoted! Great resource and interesting/encouraging to read how many companies got their first users with free, non-scalable strategies, that could be leveraged by lots of indie makers as well to get initial traction/feedback etc.
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Thanks for the reply - glad you liked it! Traction is always the hardest but even before traction you should just focus on getting the first 1-10 on board. That'll teach you what matters to your users, why your product fixes their problems and understand where you might reach similar people like them to start creating traction.
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Interesting reading - upvoted!
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Glad you liked it - thanks for the upvote!
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Awesome! Good luck Frank!
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Thank you, Joris!
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