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

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151–160 of 374 posts

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

#151
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…

Well done, an offer impossible to refuse.

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

#153
Interview 20 people who -could- be customers, but not pitch them.

Get their honest take on what sucks about their current solution/process. Ask for their expertise.

Build the thing that emerges from the 20 interviews. Not the thing they ask for, but the thing they truly need.

Craft a solid pitch from the common themes of the 20 interviews, focused on being a painkiller, not a vitamin.

Go to the place where you found those initial 20, except this time, talk about the thing you made. Not in a salesy way.

If people 1. Aren't interested; 2. Aren't converting to customers, then the thing that was built didn't properly address the pain

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

#154
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…

How hard was it to get the partnership? Was that cold outreach, too?

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

#155
post #69

Forget the usual SEO and focus on high-quality, in-depth textual and video content. Build your list for email marketing. Paid ads (FB, Google) to drive targeted traffic. PS - I do that.

> Build your list for email marketing.

How do you do that? This is where I struggle.

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

#156
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

It's in his profile

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

#157

I'm 40% through getting my first 100 users for https://www.kruh.ltd . So far, I've only added a "banner" announcement on two of my products and mentioned it at the bottom of newsletters to their subscribers. It's taken a couple of months to get this far. I will probably launch in two phases of cohorts. I.e. in blocks of 50.

“Kruh” means bread in Slovenian, so “making bread” with the product seems fitting :D

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

#158
post #151
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…

Well done, an offer impossible to refuse.

Exactly, offer something truly polished together with a very good price and ideally vitality built in.

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

#159
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

Lol...I was trying to avoid the classic shameless plug… but since you twisted my arm—it’s over at mindthenerd.com. Just getting started, but I'm having fun with it. Really appreciate you asking!

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

#160

Find a way to make it free to start. This is how Firebase, Supabase and friends work. Getting 100 people to sign up for a free service is still work, but significantly less.

Making it 100X harder to get them to pay for it subsequently. "If you’re good at something, never do it for free" - Joseph Joker MBA JD. If not, then you are in the ad business.

Supabase doesn't even require a credit card, but your data goes poof in 60 days if you don't pay.

Ideally you want your tools to be so easy to use, clients just switch onto a paid plan when they want to get serious.

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