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Ask HN: How do you get first 10 customers?

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Re: Ask HN: How do you get first 10 customers?

#11

Post by muzani »

Getting your sales channel right is its own part of the work. LinkedIn is not the only platform. You can sell office SaaS on TikTok too. There's the ad platforms. There's funky stuff like Tumblr and Pinterest. Discord, Facebook groups, etc. Try tools like Blotato which lets you build a following in multiple platforms.

PMF isn't getting to 10 customers - you simply don't have it right now. That doesn't mean the product needs a change, it could mean you're targeting the wrong market. Or you could be selling the wrong part of your product.

You should absolutely not rely on network too, and it's one of the more inefficient ways to market.

Re: Ask HN: How do you get first 10 customers?

#12

Post by AznHisoka »

jcofai wrote: post #7
vinibrito wrote: post #6

"have much of a network." There is your answer, basically walking up to them and talking to them.

This looks naive but where do I approach them to build the network?

Are there any events where they might hang out in? If you live in a major city, Lu.ma is a good place to check, but also Meetup as well. How about conferences or social events?

Re: Ask HN: How do you get first 10 customers?

#14

Post by Aro_oj »

The first 10 customers have to be your close friends and acquaintances. For that push start, they should support you, or else some people become their own first customer to get the number on the dashboard showing "10 sold." Like the RL strategy that works for sellers when someone tells you to park their car in front of their cart to trick people into believing you are their customer.

Re: Ask HN: How do you get first 10 customers?

#15

Post by Aro_oj »

The first few customers always have to be your friends or acquaintances. Or in some cases you have to be your own customer to get that "10 sold" tag on your site You know that RL strategy that works for sellers when they make you park their car in front of their cart to trick people into believing you are their customer/buyer.

Re: Ask HN: How do you get first 10 customers?

#16

Post by jrlee »

jcofai wrote: post #4
bell-cot wrote: post #2

Customers in what space? Enterprise bears minimal resemblance to Pre-K Education, which bears minimal resemblance to Small Business, which bears minimal resemblance to ...

Customers in SaaS for video marketing. Primarily targeted towards tech companies.

When we started our voice AI company 8 years ago, the first customers came from doing a ton of free consulting work. We'd reach out to companies in target industries and offer to analyze their customer service call data for free, then show them what voice AI could do with their actual data.

It felt like being taken advantage of sometimes, honestly. We'd spend weeks building custom demos and proof-of-concepts without any guaranteed return. But when you don't have a network in the industry, you have to do that kind of work to prove your credibility.

The breakthrough was realizing we weren't just giving away free work - we were learning what these companies actually needed vs what we thought they needed. Those free consulting projects taught us more about product-market fit than any survey could have.

By the time we had 10 real paying customers, we'd probably done free work for 30+ companies. The key was setting boundaries about when to transition from free to paid. You have to judge that timing yourself based on the relationship and how much value you're providing.

Re: Ask HN: How do you get first 10 customers?

#17

Post by nickfromseattle »

I built a Facebook group / community of my target market.

0. Created Facebook Group

1. Optimized my FB profile as a landing page for this community

2. Join all of the other similar groups

3. Send friend reqs to prominent members in other groups

4. Post statuses on personal profile / in FB group creating value for this audience

5. Funnel / invite people into the FB group

Launched 2 products, both failed, but the community came through for me.

#1: Got to $14k MRR in 8 months

#2: Sold ~30 annual subscriptions with a PPT pre-launch

Re: Ask HN: How do you get first 10 customers?

#18

Post by chistev »

Aro_oj wrote: post #15

The first few customers always have to be your friends or acquaintances. Or in some cases you have to be your own customer to get that "10 sold" tag on your site You know that RL strategy that works for sellers when they make you park their car in front of their cart to trick people into believing you are their customer/buyer.

Why did you comment twice?

Re: Ask HN: How do you get first 10 customers?

#19

Post by chairmansteve »

nickfromseattle wrote: post #17

I built a Facebook group / community of my target market. 0. Created Facebook Group 1. Optimized my FB profile as a landing page for this community 2. Join all of the other similar groups 3. Send friend reqs to prominent members in other groups 4. Post statuses on personal profile / in FB group creating value for this audience 5. Funnel / invite people into the FB group Launched 2 products, both failed, but the commu…

Ok. What was the product?
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