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Ask HN: How are you acquiring your first hundred users?

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Re: Ask HN: How are you acquiring your first hundred users?

#351

Post by guywithahat »

nullderef wrote: post #344

TikTok - you don't need followers to get views. It's not easy, especially if you've never used the platform before. But for B2C it's one of the best platforms. Do founder stories ("I built this") or demos ("here's this SaaS you'll like"). They get less views than memes or tangential videos. But conversion is much higher and you'll get replies from people who liked it or tried it out. So you can send them a message to…

I liked X for a similar reason; when I ran ads, customers would comment and you could directly hear what they thought about the product or even just the ad. The big issue however was I usually couldn't DM them due to changes in how X DM's work

Re: Ask HN: How are you acquiring your first hundred users?

#352

Post by reverseblade2 »

akoboldfrying wrote: post #340
reverseblade2 wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, most of the project evolved because of potential customers who later disappeared. Someone shows up and says, “Hey, we’ll pay you if you provide this feature,” so I implement it… and then they vanish The API came about the same way. Currently, there’s just one active API user: a company from Sri Lanka that built a Unity WASM interface on top of it. I coded the algorithm completely from scratch, with no external i…

Cool! And yes I'm a little surprised that you used a functional programming language for the implementation, I'll have to have a look at F#.

I think i fixed most issues, except the video one. Thanks again.

Re: Ask HN: How are you acquiring your first hundred users?

#353

Post by permo-w »

OJFord wrote: post #346
permo-w wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

B2B and SAAS are not mutually exclusive though, are they?

To be clear, I can name tonnes of B2B SaaS in (and well beyond) that realm. I was replying firmly in the 'B2C' scope of the parent comment 'B2C @ $50/month from an unknown company'.

fair enough, but it wasn't clear

Re: Ask HN: How are you acquiring your first hundred users?

#354

Post by xu3u32 »

Aniket-N wrote: post #297
Soupy wrote: post #267

I also run a small B2C company ( https://pastmaps.com ). Here's what worked for me: First 1000 users: daily manually done reddit posts. Very time-consuming and annoying, but it gets the job done. Just make sure the content drives users back to the site and is actually relevant, interesting, and valuable Next 100K users: programmatic long-tail SEO. obviously this is unique to my own product, but I realized that people…

Which communities did you post in? I got banned when I wasn’t even blatantly promoting. I answered questions and said I built something for this.

Just depends on the mods. Some are on a real power trip - or just see too much spam.

Re: Ask HN: How are you acquiring your first hundred users?

#355

Post by cosbgn »

prakashn27 wrote: post #342
cosbgn wrote: post #41

I run a small but fairly successful "embed chatGPT on your site" widget https://rispose.com I'm acquiring customers by: - Offer a 100% free unlimited solution (with branding) I get a lot of daily clicks from people coming from my customer's website - Offer a really good price. My competitors are about 5X more expensive. I'll eventually maybe raise my price, but for now I have a lot of people switching to my tool - Af…

How does this work? Does all files that I upload are in context or do you use rag?

Both, you can choose between documents (added in context) and files (RAG). It's explained fairly well in the dashboard once you login.

Re: Ask HN: How are you acquiring your first hundred users?

#356

Post by kkoste »

I have never sold anything. But as a cheapskate when it comes to online subscriptions I think my input might hold some value.

The way I get drawn in is by first trying the product for free. If your product doesn't have a free tier or free trial then I recommend you creating it.

Re: Ask HN: How are you acquiring your first hundred users?

#357

Post by michalu »

For B2B I manually research ideal customers and manually reach out via cold email. I'd send a few hundred. If you don't get any buys from 200 emails sent to your target market you probably don't have a business.

Once I validate and start getting traction only then I start automating cold email, ads etc. Do not validate with automated cold email agency. You can't automate something well what aren't doing with success already manually. Nothing beats manually researching your prospects and writing up personalized email - only when you understand this process and you know how, where and when to find your ICP and what to look for and what to tell them only then you can automate this process.

You want to automate processes that work already. Not the other way around.

Built a few businesses with this approach and still works today in 2025.

Re: Ask HN: How are you acquiring your first hundred users?

#360

Post by qzw »

leosanchez wrote: post #326
e3bc54b2 wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe they did, but the strategy is known to be effective and VCs are known to be stupid..

But isn't it fraud?

You and I may call it that, but in SV that’s just standard growth hacking.
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