Reaching my first 100 users without money or audience (at 10K users now)

35 points | by felixheikka 248 days ago

6 comments

MeetingsBrowser 248 days ago

This seems like it would only work if your product is targeting other founders as users.
> Our absolute first users came from our idea validation post on Reddit.
> It took us two weeks of daily action like this to reach our first 100 users.
Did you distinguish between people who tried it to give feedback and people actually using it?
> This was mainly in “Build in Public” but also in “Startup Community”
I've never been active in this type of community, but it seems like a self fulfilling prophecy.
Feels like a group of people agreeing to follow each other on social media so they can tell others they have X followers.

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- felixheikka 248 days ago
  
  It works well for products targeting founders since they're very active online. However, there's no problem to find social media communities of gardeners, lawyers, content creators, etc., to be active in.
  Not everyone who gave feedback ended up being an active user, but they were all part of our target audience. Otherwise their feedback would've been quite irrelevant.
  "Feels like a group of people agreeing to follow each other on social media so they can tell others they have X followers." made me laugh not gonna lie, but it's actually a nice community of founders. Currently at 140k members.
  
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  - southernplaces7 248 days ago
    
    And despite giving a polite reply that provides further information and your viewpoints on adopting this marketing strategy in other fields, you just get downvoted because.. who the fuck knows why when it comes to random pedantic idiocy.
    Loved your post above, useful tips on one of the hardest parts of starting small, and I made sure to save it.
felixheikka 248 days ago

For the curious, my SaaS can be found here https://buildpad.io
nico 248 days ago

Great story, and excellent example of being intentional about targeting, engaging and building an audience

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- felixheikka 248 days ago
  
  Thanks!
deverman 246 days ago

Thanks I'm going to start the grind by commenting here now!
andreton 248 days ago

Huge believer in providing value first to build a community and brand.

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- felixheikka 248 days ago
  
  I'm with you there 100%
chukaebi1 248 days ago

this is cool. thanks for sharing. was your app paid only or freemium? if the latter, how many of those first 100 went straight to paying?

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- felixheikka 248 days ago
  
  No problem. We kept the MVP free because we wanted to get more people through the door who could provide the valuable feedback we needed.
  It wasn't until around 150 users that we launched on Product Hunt and got our first paying customers.
  
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  - internationalis 248 days ago
    
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