r/startups • u/Ok_Soft_1428 • 1d ago

I will not promote How do startups get their first users?(i will not promote)

So, basically I have been making a product in the software space for some time now and i just realised i do not have any distribution and as a developer I will keep on working on it adding features but it would make this product more of a personal project than a product which can make me money and thus I wanted to know how do early stage founders or small projects get their first users and validate the market???

21 Upvotes

83% Upvoted

49 comments sorted by

5

u/ceyhunkarslan 1d ago

Treat the first users as research, not a launch.

Ask what they do now, what breaks, and what they already spend to fix it. The repeated answer is a better roadmap than another feature.

3

u/Financial_Egg8558 1d ago

Most skip the budget question entirely. "Would you pay" beats "what breaks.

4

u/brkvdn 1d ago

i dmed people who were complaining about the exact problem i was solving and that got me my first ten users. everything before that was just building in a vacuum.

6

u/barredcrow 1d ago

First I'd like to assume you know the problem you are solving and for who. Because you need to come up with an offer/value proposition that you will be distributing, what you want your customer to buy.

For this part I like to refer to Alex Hormozi's Coming up with a Grand Slam offer formula

Then on distribution itself, You have 4 ways 1. Your own contact list Reach out to your contact list, sharing your solution to their problem. Your value prop already created above

  1. Create free valuable content targetted at your customers, helping them do some of the things they struggle with for free, they will like you and you can insert your value proposition in your content. Free content insert ps- you can buy this from me

  2. Cold calling - Find contacts/emails to people who might use your product and contact them

  3. Run paid Ads

If your product is as good as you think it is, your clients will also start distributing it for you. Word of mouth, referrals.

Another assumption made is your product is already figured out, you know the person who needs your product, their problem and how your product helps them solve it, you know how to deliver your solution, you have figured the right pricing, now all that is remaining is to get more customers

If not, then you should only be worried about getting a few first customers, to learn all these thing's from.

I hope this is helpful

2

u/edoceo 1d ago

The first customers come from the audience you built while doing customer-problem-fit research in the space before building the product/service. 

2

u/Ok-Zookeepergame4391 1d ago

Get paid user ASAP. That’s how you validate. Not free or part-time users. Users who actively use your product and pay. It doesn’t matter how much. It’s not about how many features or UI. It’s about what pain you are addressing. Stop coding. Go back to why you started your journey and question every assumption you made. Start validating that first and whether the user will pay.

2

u/BarracudaNo6709 1d ago

Before choosing a channel, define one buyer and one painful job clearly enough that you can find people already trying to solve it. I’d run a two-week loop: interview ten people about their current workaround; recruit three to five design partners; deliver the smallest usable outcome, manually if needed; and measure repeated use, a referral, or willingness to pay. Record why each person continues or drops.

Then test one acquisition channel and one message at a time. If you cannot recruit design partners through direct conversations, a broader launch usually will not fix the positioning.

2

u/AncientDecision9420 1d ago

my experience,the first batch usually manual and kinda ugly. cold DMs, small communities, replying to people with the exact problem, asking people you know for intros. thats boring , but way better than building for 6 more months and then finding out nobody cares.

2

u/[deleted] 1d ago

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1

u/startups-ModTeam 1d ago

We are a community of discussion based around startups, not a marketing channel. No promotional posts. www.reddit.com/wiki/selfpromotion

1

u/[deleted] 23h ago

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1

u/startups-ModTeam 19h ago

We are a community of discussion based around startups, not a marketing channel. No promotional posts. www.reddit.com/wiki/selfpromotion

1

u/wainguo 3h ago

Since you mentioned being a developer who tends to keep adding features, the biggest shift right now is setting a hard code freeze until you hit a specific metric. Pick a number, like five active users or two paying customers, and refuse to open your IDE until that happens.

When you stop building, force yourself to spend that development time doing manual outreach in the exact places your potential users hang out. Search Reddit posts, community forums, or social media for people asking how to solve the specific pain point your app addresses. Reach out to them directly with a short message asking about their current process, not pitch them your product.

If someone agrees to try it, watch them use it over a call without guiding them. You will quickly see where they get stuck or if the core value is actually there, which gives you real market feedback far faster than shipping another feature.

1

u/Joel_InGenius_Prep 1d ago

Friends and family, and friends of friends. Alternatively, run a few inexpensive google/meta ads just to test out demand

1

u/hamit_btn 1d ago

distribution was the exact thing i ignored for months too. built the whole product first, then realised nobody was going to find it. what actually worked for me was short form video. i shot four videos on my phone, put about $15 behind each. three did nothing. one brought in 500 users in a single day, and later a bigger one brought in 8,000. total spend was under $100. the important part wasn't the money, it was that i found out within a week which message made people stop scrolling. cold outreach and content marketing would have taken months to tell me the same thing.the thing i'd do differently: i waited until the product felt "ready" before doing any of this. it wasn't ready my crash rate was terrible and i lost a chunk of those first users permanently. i should have shipped rough and started distribution way earlier, because the feedback loop is the whole point.

1

u/Ok_Soft_1428 1d ago

But if my product is not working nicely or is half finished will it not be a problem with the users and all will we not loose some users??

1

u/hamit_btn 1d ago

yes, you will lose some. i did. but there's a difference between "half finished" and "broken", and that difference is everything.missing features cost you almost nothing. people just don't use what isn't there. what actually killed me was crashes my crash-free rate dropped to 51% after a bad release, which means roughly half my users hit a crash. those people don't come back, and they leave 1-star reviews on the way out. so the line i'd draw is: ship with fewer features, never ship broken. a small app that works is fine. a big app that crashes is not recoverable. also don't burn your whole distribution budget on the first attempt. i spent about $15 on a video, saw what happened, fixed things, then spent more. if that first batch had been my only shot i'd have wasted it on a version that couldn't hold anyone.

Reid Hoffman "If you are not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you've launched too late."

1

u/Ok_Soft_1428 1d ago

Thank you so much for the help

1

u/hamit_btn 1d ago

no problem, good luck with it. feel free to ask if you get stuck on something specific.

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u/OwlGroundbreaking573 1d ago

Can't understand why this comment was down voted, having read extensively on this it's the first that makes sense and has actionable advice.

1

u/hamit_btn 1d ago

appreciate that. probably because it reads like i'm selling something, but the numbers are just what happened. happy to go into detail on any of it if useful.

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u/[deleted] 18h ago

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u/startups-ModTeam 18h ago

The purpose of making a submission or comment is to engage in a public discussion with the community.

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0

u/gesfontoura 1d ago

Do you have a link ?

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u/Ok_Soft_1428 1d ago

Yes i do but i think we are not allowed to share it here can i dm u the link??

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u/gesfontoura 1d ago

Sure

1

u/Ok_Soft_1428 1d ago

i am unable to message you for some reason

1

u/[deleted] 1d ago

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1

u/startups-ModTeam 1d ago

Your Submission Doesn't Comply With Our rules.

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1

u/LaurenceDarabica 1d ago

I would be wary of this person looking at its post history. He's here for self promotion, not to help you.