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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?

#141

Post by pc86 »

gardnr wrote: post #122
conductr wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is inception level promotion, I’m not even mad at ya lol

Is this comment part of the grift?

I don't think it's a grift in the negative sense but this is absolutely a marketing comment. They're doing exactly what they say to do in the comment. They're on HN where at least some of their target market is. They have a product that is relevant (right down to the headline/CTA). They didn't just post the link but put it at the end of an informational comment.

10/10 meta-promotion IMO

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

#142

Post by econ »

nicooo wrote: post #115

I’ve had success twice using targeted social media outreach — specifically by joining relevant subreddit discussions and commenting on YouTube videos where my target audience was already active. Instead of simply promoting your service right away (it often feels spammy), I recommend genuinely engaging in conversations until the right opportunity comes up. I ended up turning that process into its own product: https://…

Now we need a corporate chat bot that talks about pain points on social media.

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

#144

Post by pc86 »

I run a marketplace buy-sell type SaaS app that is pretty niched down.

Cold outreach is key. We have a handful of competitors so really focused on "building a better mouse trap" then just reach out directly to sellers on competing platforms. Especially for the first couple dozen it's a hard sell, we had to basically give it away for free. Once there's an actual audience though it's easier to tell someone about it and just send them to the normal sign up flow with a discount code.

You can't get away from cold outreach though, especially at the beginning. I'm not sure you'd want to even if you could? The feedback for us has been invaluable.

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

#145

Post by pier25 »

I'm scratching my itch and I'm part of multiple communities with people in this industry/domain (audio, music production, etc).

I started promoting it in a forum I've been part of for years and from there it's growing organically. I'm close to reaching the first 100 users with no ads and only the marketing website:

https://wavekit.app/

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

#146

Post by rafram »

Applejinx wrote: post #116
rwieruch wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not ignorant at all. I'm not sure if they’ve added any monetization features over the years. Back then, it was arguably the best platform for getting discovered as a producer or DJ. When I stopped making music, I was getting a lot of requests to play at clubs across Germany and Europe. At the time, I preferred to stay anonymous, so I never made the leap into the professional or public scene. Still, I was in touch wit…

Might be fortunate instead: they're setting up to be able to train AI on specifically you and then, if needed, make music AS you undercutting you. Such is the way of things these days. I dropped Soundcloud paid version too, and migrated to just YouTube. Currently YouTube is trying very hard to learn to reply to my fans AS me, but through pushing buttons to immediately supply AI-generated responses. I'm sure anyone el…

https://www.avclub.com/soundcloud-training-data-ai-music

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

#147

Post by SenpaiHurricane »

My project is bitecritic.com, and its free. I try multiple stuff and in 2 months there are only 60 users.

Producthunt, tinystartups -> garbage, no value, no users Reddit -> Mods block you on many topics, no signups from there

Tiktok -> AI generated video 1000 views. Tiktok Ads -> 2k views per video 3 euros -> 5 signups Instagram -> Most of the users are coming from here. Friends and Family -> My real users :D

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

#148

Post by 2YwaZHXV »

curiousigor wrote: post #139

Built a free product ( https://heymeta.com ) to solve my own problem and posted it here on HN and Reddit as well as Product Hunt (that was in 2018 when it was still relevant). Currently getting 15k/unique/month (it has dropped a bit less, but steadily getting up after the rewrite and bigfixes). When the website doesn't have sponsors, I promote my other free macOS tool ( https://dockey.publicspace.co ) (with a donatio…

https://www.heymeta.com/sponsor/ returns a 404 currently... is that expected?

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

#149

Post by ednite »

For my SaaS, the first 100 users were almost too easy. I partnered with a company sitting on thousands of clients and offered my tool—free—to just 10% of their list. But I didn’t sell features. I asked what their clients hated most, then built a fix for that. One well-placed feature, and the doors swung open. Real users, real feedback—and we’re still building on that foundation.

Then there’s my blog. A creative sandbox, no overlap with my day job. No built-in audience. No distribution. Still waiting on subscriber #1 (Mom, seriously—now would be a good time).

Takeaways:

    Partner with someone who already has meaningful reach.

    Solve a real, hair-on-fire problem.

    Offer something free to earn early trust.

    Knock on doors, pitch relentlessly, repeat. And hope the gods of luck are listening.
As for the writing side—different beast. Slower burn, no roadmap, no shortcuts. Still wandering in the woods, but enjoying the walk. Open to ideas—and subscribers. (Mom… last chance.)

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

#150

Post by adammarples »

ednite wrote: post #149

For my SaaS, the first 100 users were almost too easy. I partnered with a company sitting on thousands of clients and offered my tool—free—to just 10% of their list. But I didn’t sell features. I asked what their clients hated most, then built a fix for that. One well-placed feature, and the doors swung open. Real users, real feedback—and we’re still building on that foundation. Then there’s my blog. A creative sandb…

an idea might be providing a link to the blog
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