How to Get Your Startups First 100 Users

You can’t just build it and hope they come

If you build it, they will come. Right?

What worked for a corn farm in Dyersville, Iowa, decisively does NOT work for startups. The startup graveyard is littered with companies with incredible products that went under because they did not focus on distribution until it was too late.

Getting those first users can be challenging for anyone, especially if you don’t have the cash to throw money at the problem. I asked my Twitter followers how they got their first users, and the answers blew me away. Here’s a link to the thread if you want to check it out.

By the numbers

I went through and categorized each of the responses in the thread and found that the majority of founders that responded got their first users by manually reaching out (54%). This was followed by social accounts and then ads with 18 and 10%, respectively.

First and foremost, this data shows that there is no one way to get your start, but the thing that most of these tactics have in common is that they are more manual than most acquisition methods at larger companies.

I talked with a few of the founders about their experience and figured it could be helpful to all of you potential founders out there wondering how to get started.

Case Study: Respell

Matthew Rastovac (CEO and founder of respell.ai, a company that lets you build AI workflows without code) started with a simple landing page in February. By July, they took it down to begin their actual growth efforts. They made a Twitter post at the end of March that went viral and got them 3000 signups.

From there, they did very little marketing and ran phased releases to test the product with these users. After they took down the waitlist, they had roughly 200 daily active users (DAU). That being said, for a company like Respell, where the promise is that you set-and-forget, DAU is not a great metric for measuring the success of the company.

Matthew mentioned they had multiple lucky breaks, like having Greg Brockman Retweeting their post, which was not a repeatable process. He says that if they had to do it all over again, they would probably do more marketing while the waitlist was up. But either way, it worked out well for them.

Case Study: Swell AI

Swell AI’s founder, Cody Schneider, took the plunge to acquire users and customers even before their product was fully developed. They understood the importance of leveraging existing relationships, particularly in B2B. They set up a Google Drive folder where friends and acquaintances could upload MP3 files, providing valuable insights and feedback. This approach served as market validation, proving their concept’s worth before the product’s completion. Swell AI established a strong foundation for future success by securing its initial customers from the get-go.

Within 90 days, Swell AI hit the 100-customer milestone. This was fueled by the introduction of ChatGPT, where Swell AI capitalized on the existing market demand, positioning itself to ride the wave of enthusiasm surrounding the tech.

Looking back, Cody said he wouldn’t change much given the chance to start over. However, they acknowledge the need to handle arbitrage opportunities differently, being more proactive in seizing such chances and allocating a greater share of resources for maximum gains.

If you are looking for a good person to follow on distribution, I highly recommend following Cody.

There is no right way to get your first users.

That being said, it’s obvious that for most of us, this is not an easy process. Most startups do this the hard way, by doing things that don’t scale. If you haven’t read Paul Graham’s famous essay with the same name, stop what you are doing and read it now (link). The point is, early on, you will have to try things that feel awkward and piecemeal to get your first users.

“Startups take off because the founders make them take off. There may be a handful that just grew by themselves, but usually it takes some sort of push to get them going.” — Paul Graham

Although it is different for each company, here are some constants that stand out for getting your first users:

Reach out to your target audience directly
Give away free information
Create a social presence
Keep trying

Remember, consistency > perfection.

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How to Get Your Startups First 100 Users was originally published in Entrepreneur's Handbook on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

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