I'm here to find the answers too. I’ve made two apps so far. I made a Discord community and had my friends try them, and they kept adding their friends, so now on the Discord server I have around 20 people, and a few more outside it. Out of these, I found only one guy who fits the ICP (ideal customer profile). But this Discord thing works mostly through friend-to-friend chains, which is slow. I plan to use Reddit and later on influencer marketing. But yes, I have 0 funding, so I’ll start low and then build from there. Still not sure if this is the best way to go.
Ask HN: How did you get your first users with zero audience?
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Re: Ask HN: How did you get your first users with zero audience?
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Re: Ask HN: How did you get your first users with zero audience?
#13coming from non-SF environment hits hard honestly, building reechy.cam/collections and been wondering the same thing
Re: Ask HN: How did you get your first users with zero audience?
#14If you have no one to launch to, who are you building for? How did you validate your idea? The answer depends on what you are building and who you are building it for. The default approach is a little crowded, a little spammy. No one likes someone who joins a community just to self-promote. More and more, my approach has been to build customer streams instead of finding them one by one. Don't sell to restaurants, sel…
this line is absolute gold. but how do you apply this logic if the product is b2c or just doesn't have a clear "middleman" seller in the loop?
Re: Ask HN: How did you get your first users with zero audience?
#15I have the same problem. What I am trying so far:
- Build things for me. I try to solve my own problem. Then, I show it to friends. If it works for me, it could also be helpful to people like me. I built something very basic, I show it to people who could have the same problem, and incorporate suggestions. Iterate fast. In the worst case, I build something that was useful to me.
- I listen to someone else's pain. But I should have the same or similar problem, and I know or guess I can solve that. I build an MVP and show it to him/her. The same process as before.
Re: Ask HN: How did you get your first users with zero audience?
#16The sad truth is perseverance and staying up-beat. Most launches are received with dead silence.
My favorite definition of a startup is: "a group of people trying to survive long enough to get lucky".
Keep on pushing, listen to subjective feedback, don't try to automate distribution early.
I use https://z2one.co to help draft and track my distribution plans - I really enjoy building but when it comes to distribution I feel overwhelmed.
Re: Ask HN: How did you get your first users with zero audience?
#17The sad truth is perseverance and staying up-beat. Most launches are received with dead silence. My favorite definition of a startup is: "a group of people trying to survive long enough to get lucky". Keep on pushing, listen to subjective feedback, don't try to automate distribution early. I use https://z2one.co to help draft and track my distribution plans - I really enjoy building but when it comes to distribution…
Definition of a startup: "a group of people trying to survive long enough to get lucky"
This is a good one!
Re: Ask HN: How did you get your first users with zero audience?
#18The sad truth is perseverance and staying up-beat. Most launches are received with dead silence. My favorite definition of a startup is: "a group of people trying to survive long enough to get lucky". Keep on pushing, listen to subjective feedback, don't try to automate distribution early. I use https://z2one.co to help draft and track my distribution plans - I really enjoy building but when it comes to distribution…
Definition of a startup: "a group of people trying to survive long enough to get lucky" This is a good one!
:)
Another one which is pretty deep imo. "startup: a team building not a product, but the thing that will tell them what the product should be"
Re: Ask HN: How did you get your first users with zero audience?
#19Oh, I’ve been struggling with exactly this recently while trying to show people my open-source AI agent engine. I built it based on my own pain points, primarily for myself—but I really believe in the architectural approach and would love to get genuine feedback from the community.
It’s incredibly hard to break through the noise right now. We’ve been discussing “attention inflation” a lot on HN lately in the context of recruiting and open-source PRs, but it absolutely exists in distribution too. When everyone is overwhelmed by a flood of content, getting even 10 real developers to look at your repo feels much harder than actually writing the code.
Re: Ask HN: How did you get your first users with zero audience?
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