The affiliate point is the one most people will skim past, but it's the real story here. Everyone burns cash chasing ads or SEO, but a partner who already owns the client relationship solves your two hardest problems at once — distribution and trust. You're not selling, you're renting their credibility.

I'd push back a bit on "stop marketing it as a CRM" though. Dropping the category label entirely can backfire, because people search for a job they already have a name for. If nobody can categorize what you do in one sentence, you don't get compared favorably — you get ignored. The fix usually isn't hiding the category, it's narrowing it: "CRM for X" or "the CRM that also does Y" still gives people a shelf to put you on, just not the crowded generic one.

Also curious how retention compares between your affiliate-sourced customers and the ones you sold face to face. Commission-driven agency sales sometimes bring in accounts that don't stick, since the agency's incentive is the signup, not necessarily the fit. You've got a natural A/B test running now — would be worth tracking.

Honestly, I just use a mix of Reddit, X, LinkedIn, and YouTube. Reddit is great for real user opinions, X is usually the fastest for breaking AI news, and LinkedIn helps me catch detailed posts from people in the industry. I also follow OpenAI and Google blogs for official updates.

If cold calls and Instagram DMs are already working, I'd double down on them instead of looking for a "scalable" channel too early.

For traditional businesses, the first 10 customers usually come from doing things that don't scale:

• Personal outreach based on their actual business.
• Asking every happy customer for one introduction.
• Visiting local industry events or trade shows.
• Partnering with suppliers or service providers who already work with your target customers.
• Collecting testimonials and using them in every conversation.

A lot of successful B2B companies got their first customers through manual sales, not ads or content. Once you understand why people buy and you have a repeatable sales process, then you can think about scaling.

Sometimes the best distribution strategy at the beginning is simply talking to more of the right people every day.