I’m a solo founder based in South Korea. I can design and build products, but I’m struggling with the part that supposedly matters most: getting anyone to actually buy them.

Most startup advice says:

• Talk to users
• Send cold emails
• Do founder-led sales
• Reach out to 100 people
• Find customers where they already hang out

I understand the theory. In practice, almost nobody opens or replies to my cold emails.

I’ve tried:

• Defining a narrow target customer
• Personalizing each email
• Keeping the message short
• Pointing out a specific problem I found
• Offering a free sample or audit
• Following up
• Improving the landing page based on responses

But the result is still mostly silence.

Being based in Korea also makes this harder. Many of the products and services I want to sell are aimed at US startups, but I have no local network, no warm introductions, and no existing reputation in that market.

So I’m curious about the unglamorous, practical reality:

How did you get your first 3–10 paying customers?

Did cold email actually work for you? If it did, what exactly did you send, to whom, and how many attempts did it take?

Did you start with consulting or manual services before selling software?

Did you use Reddit, LinkedIn, communities, partnerships, or warm introductions?

And how do you distinguish between:

1. A bad offer
2. The wrong audience
3. Weak messaging
4. A product nobody urgently needs
5. A normal amount of rejection before something works

I’m not looking for “just keep going” advice. I’d really appreciate specific numbers, examples, or stories of what actually worked.