Live data from Hacker News

How SaaS startup guys get first 100 customers first, make fkn $500k ARR fast?

news.ycombinator.com

31–40 of 47 posts

Re: How SaaS startup guys get first 100 customers first, make fkn $500k ARR fast?

#31

You need to set up a methodical go-to-market process. You can automate some of it, but it's good to start manually and learn the ropes first. You need to understand who your ideal customer is and what channels are they on. Linkedin is a common one for b2b sales. If you make 200 connections on linkedin every week and send them a message, some % of that will convert to meetings and sales (the exact % depends on your au…

> If you make 200 connections on linkedin every week and send them a message, some % of that will convert to meetings and sales (the exact % depends on your audience, message, and how urgent the pain you're solving is)

Doesn't work. Everyone is doing this, your target is getting dozens of messages per day, or 100s if their profile shows them to be a potential decision-maker for purchases.

Maybe, n some rare case, someone in some business hits a pain point that day, and decides there and then that they need a replacement product, and your message gets to them within the next few days, then sure.

But, unlikely.

Re: How SaaS startup guys get first 100 customers first, make fkn $500k ARR fast?

#32
> I always see these LinkedIn or X guys making $500k ARR or $1m ARR within months; how the fkk do they get that many customers without spending on ads?

First, as others have pointed out, that ARR is an amplification number.

Second, if it is not, then they may have spent $1m in marketing for a $500k revenue.

You never know, they aren't going to let anyone see poverty, they're only going to project success.

Re: How SaaS startup guys get first 100 customers first, make fkn $500k ARR fast?

#33

How much you want? $1M? $10M? I could easily give you that title. Or maybe you can even do that yourself. Lots of new companies are either faked, or amplified. Example: If I made a sale of $100 this hour, it can become $864K ARR, with amplification (100 x 24 x 30 x 12). What to do? Focus on your job and forget everybody else. Don't ever judge progress by revenue alone. A low revenue company who invents something in e…

Its fking frustrating and exhausting when you spend 8 months to build something genuinely good and not another AI wrapper and can't get money out of it and teach ai to survive. It sucks man

Yes it does. I spent (and still spending) years developing stuff and still not have enough money out of them. Some want to kick me out of home because of it. It sucks.

But you never knew when your efforts compound, and that's the point.

Keep up the good work. No. Matter. What.

Re: How SaaS startup guys get first 100 customers first, make fkn $500k ARR fast?

#35
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

but some people dont have office make shit ton of money from ai slop saas? genuinely frustrated by all the effort I put and no outcome

Did you build what you want or what your customers need?

its a need of the hour

Re: How SaaS startup guys get first 100 customers first, make fkn $500k ARR fast?

#37
post #8

To my estimation, you are in B2B, competing with the likes of Wiz. Those with $500k ARR are usually "ad forwarding" or "networking" companies. Think about how you distribute your software, that's probably more important than your current features.

thats nice suggestion tbh

Re: How SaaS startup guys get first 100 customers first, make fkn $500k ARR fast?

#38
post #8

To my estimation, you are in B2B, competing with the likes of Wiz. Those with $500k ARR are usually "ad forwarding" or "networking" companies. Think about how you distribute your software, that's probably more important than your current features.

the whole vision is not sending code to cloud servers to audit. So people dont worry about the egress

Re: How SaaS startup guys get first 100 customers first, make fkn $500k ARR fast?

#39
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you build what you want or what your customers need?

its a need of the hour

And none of the LLM providers can do this themselves? I can’t just point Claude at a GitHub repo and ask it to check it for me?

Re: How SaaS startup guys get first 100 customers first, make fkn $500k ARR fast?

#40
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

its a need of the hour

And none of the LLM providers can do this themselves? I can’t just point Claude at a GitHub repo and ask it to check it for me?

not without sending your code to them, if you have .env file with variables exposed, you will need to rotate again.
Post reply on HN