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…
Ask HN: How are you acquiring your first hundred users?
311–320 of 374 posts
Re: Ask HN: How are you acquiring your first hundred users?
#312Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not cold—more like soft outreach. It happened at a social event through mutual friends. Classic “So, what do you do?” convo. I said software dev. They said, “Ugh, we use this tool—it’s garbage.” I listened (an underrated superpower), realized I could actually fix the problem, and suggested a meetup. One Zoom meeting later, we had the foundation of a partnership. Honestly, it could’ve been any event. Just show up, be…
> They said, “Ugh, we use this tool—it’s garbage.” I'm still waiting to experience a version of this conversation where I'm not informed that the tool they want doesn't exist or all the ones they have are bad because they lack X and Y and include Z, am treated to a description of the tool they want, and then am able to find a half-dozen options for that exact thing on my very first try, all of which seem to be strugg…
Instead of pushing your solution, offer to help with theirs. That might mean helping them improve their current system or even assisting with testing X. Strange as that may sound, it genuinely shows you care and want to help. You’d be surprised how much trust that can build—and how it can open doors to the opportunity you were hoping for. That said, don’t fake it. If you’re not being sincere, it won’t serve either interest. Just sharing what’s worked for me—hope it helps and wishing you the best.
Re: Ask HN: How are you acquiring your first hundred users?
#313Re: Ask HN: How are you acquiring your first hundred users?
#314Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are you able to share. I would love to see real world success stories of LLM use cases and integrations, beyond the common ones you see often (code gen, story gen, automated summaries, etc)
Of course. Most of the AI cases (that turn out to be an actual success) focus around a few repeatable patterns and a limited use of "AI". Here are a few interesting ones: (1) Data extraction. E.g. extracting specs of electronic components from data-sheets (it was applied to address a USA market with 300M per year size). Or parsing back Purchase Order specs from PDFs in fragmented and under-digitized EU construction m…
Re: Ask HN: How are you acquiring your first hundred users?
#315Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why did you write this using AI?
I think this person genuinely writes like an llm. Read the rest of their comments. My llm radar picks it up as well. A reverse uncanny valley
Re: Ask HN: How are you acquiring your first hundred users?
#316Earlier quoted context omitted.
Please don't post AI-generated comments, or any generated comments, to Hacker News. This is a place for conversation between humans.
Got it—I'm green here. My comments are human, sometimes put in AI for spelling, grammar, and structure. I will avoid AI for HN posts at all costs, and thank you for clarifying.
Re: Ask HN: How are you acquiring your first hundred users?
#317Not sure if it’s relevant because you specifically mentioned about B2C. For cyber security product, we took the open source route. We build our core technology in public as open source project. https://github.com/safedep/vet The commercial SaaS is for scaling and management. Our entire funnel is based on OSS. Folks who have already found value and is looking to scale their deployment. This model works for us especial…
Re: Ask HN: How are you acquiring your first hundred users?
#318I have built this 3d bin packer. https://3dpack.ing Despite my best attempts didn’t take off:(
Could you give more of an idea about how much it "took off"? Based on earlier comments of yours, it seems that you have some paying customers. Has it grown very gradually? Do you have much churn?
Also curious how you have been splitting your time between algorithm development for the underlying optimisation problem (probably the most interesting part to me!), AI front-end (a neat value-add on top), marketing and dealing with support? If you have the time and energy, I'm sure a blog post or similar would be interesting to many people.
Re: Ask HN: How are you acquiring your first hundred users?
#319Earlier quoted context omitted.
> They said, “Ugh, we use this tool—it’s garbage.” I'm still waiting to experience a version of this conversation where I'm not informed that the tool they want doesn't exist or all the ones they have are bad because they lack X and Y and include Z, am treated to a description of the tool they want, and then am able to find a half-dozen options for that exact thing on my very first try, all of which seem to be strugg…
Amen. You also have to find the people who have authority to make buying decisions in the first place. And... many times people saying "tool X sucks"... it might, but that's the only tool that is blessed, or is the only one that has integration with something else they rely on, etc.
As for the elephant in the room: large corporations are riddled with bureaucracy, inflexible policies, and, frankly, executives who often don’t give a hoot. Not impossible—but definitely more difficult. Speaking from experience (and this may be hard to believe, especially after being accused of being an LLM agent): one of my SaaS web apps I developed last year is currently in use—at no cost—by a top Fortune 500 company. I can't name them, but I maintain the app through a small fee charged to one of their 3rd-party vendors I work with. Now, to be clear: the number of users is barely worth mentioning, but the collective data and its operational value are huge for that corporate department. In short, they love it. Ever since launch, I've been trying to convince them to take on the fees directly and scale the app across all their branches. Even though their internal team, including IT department, has endorsed it and approved internal use, they have too many barriers to jump even before thinking of adopting it as their own tool. Anyway—just sharing. Sorry for the long comment! Amen.
Re: Ask HN: How are you acquiring your first hundred users?
#320Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think this person genuinely writes like an llm. Read the rest of their comments. My llm radar picks it up as well. A reverse uncanny valley
Look at his blog. 0 spelling error, 2 big articles in 1 day. A LOT of —… This is just an LLM. I would be surprised if this guy writes like this. Why do you think he’s NOT an LLM?
I write a lot (maybe too much, some might say). I actually spent last weekend writing 10k words for self-help book that just popped in my mind - and yes, i trust me i did more than 2 big articles in one day, just haven't published them yet and to be frank, i'm a little worried now.
For full transparency: yes, I used ChatGPT, Grammarly, and Hemingway to assist with the writing structure, grammar and spelling. Not originality and wording. It just helps me move faster and keeps the flow going.
Will my book be a bestseller? Doubt it—it’s my first. Will anyone read it? No clue. Maybe if it’s free. Was it worth my time instead of coding? Absolutely. It cleared my mind and shifted my focus—something I think everyone should try at least once. So yeah, maybe I do write like ChatGPT... but one could also say ChatGPT writes like me. Anyway, like i said, I hope I don’t get banned—I really do like it here.