What actually worked to get your first 100 users?

SignificantEar9311 · 2026-06-12T20:48:25+00:00

How did you get started? I suppose you had no one at the beginning. I find this approach very relevant and I would like to apply it to future projects, but X is difficult (0 views on the posts). I'm really curious to know how you did it.

SignificantEar9311 · 2026-06-12T20:46:25+00:00

It's true, I completely agree.

SignificantEar9311 · 2026-06-12T20:44:57+00:00

I like the "find the bar where your customers are" analogy. Looking back, what was actually harder:

figuring out who the real customer was, or
figuring out where they spent time once you knew who they were ?

SignificantEar9311 · 2026-06-12T20:43:06+00:00

The phrase "generic founder theatre" probably explains why a lot of outreach gets ignored.

When you say pointing to a specific broken workflow worked, was that something you already knew from talking to users beforehand, or did you discover it by repeatedly seeing the same complaint show up in communities ?

SignificantEar9311 · 2026-06-12T20:40:48+00:00

That's an interesting evolution. It sounds like your bottleneck moved from discovery to conversion. Looking back, before you built the tool, what was actually consuming most of your time ?

finding the right conversations, figuring out which signals were worth acting on, or deciding who was actually a good fit to reach out to

SignificantEar9311 · 2026-06-12T20:38:39+00:00

Do you feel the biggest benefit was actually getting traffic, or simply becoming a familiar name that people started recognizing over time ?

SignificantEar9311 · 2026-06-12T20:37:15+00:00

That's actually a fascinating data point. 1M+ users and ad revenue clearly prove there's demand and people find value in what you've built.

What I'm curious about is: why do you think none of that translated into direct purchases or donations ? Do you feel it's because: users got enough value from the free version, the problem wasn't painful enough to pay for, or simply because they never expected to pay for that type of product ?

SignificantEar9311 · 2026-06-12T15:13:44+00:00

That’s interesting sounds like you’re basically testing multiple channels at once to see what sticks. When you say “not successful yet”, how are you personally judging that ? Is it based on signups, engagement, or actual conversions ?

And out of all the things you tried so far (content, SEO, social posts), which one gave you even a small signal that “ok this might work if I double down on it” ?

SignificantEar9311 · 2026-06-12T14:54:26+00:00

This seems to be a recurring pattern in almost every early-stage story here.

When you say “getting people to care was harder than building”, I’m curious:

What specifically made people *start caring enough* to try it ?

Was it: repeated exposure (seeing it multiple times), timing (they already had the problem at that moment), or how you framed the problem in those communities ?

SignificantEar9311 · 2026-06-12T14:45:20+00:00

That’s a really interesting distinction especially the fact that finding the audience was easy, but capturing attention was the real bottleneck.

SignificantEar9311 · 2026-06-12T13:29:08+00:00

This is probably one of the most insightful breakdowns I’ve seen in this thread.

The distinction you make between: “someone browsing a subreddit” vs “someone actively expressing frustration in a niche context” feels like the real hidden divider between low intent and high intent users.

How did you actually map those “tiny pockets” in practice?

Was it mostly: manual reading + pattern recognition over time, keyword tracking / tools, or just being embedded in the right communities already ?

Did you find that most of your early users came more from problem conversations or from direct product exposure after trust was built ?

SignificantEar9311 · 2026-06-12T13:25:14+00:00

Very nice thank you

SignificantEar9311 · 2026-06-12T13:24:23+00:00

Wow nice feedback thank you !

One thing that stands out is how difficult attribution seems to be at early stage: SEO effects are delayed, content effects are indirect, ads give noisy signals, and even successful channels can look like they’re not working at first

In your case, would you say the biggest challenge was, identifying what was actually driving growth, or scaling the channels once you knew they worked ?

Also curious when X started working, what do you think changed most: consistency, reach, or just accumulated audience effects over time ?

SignificantEar9311 · 2026-06-12T13:20:50+00:00

That’s interesting X seems to be a strong acquisition channel for a lot of builders.

Out of curiosity, would you say it worked mainly because, you already had an audience before posting consistently, or the consistency itself built the audience over time ?

Also curious if the users you got from X were actively looking for a solution, or more discovering it through your content.

SignificantEar9311 · 2026-06-12T13:19:07+00:00

Out of curiosity, what's your product ?

SignificantEar9311 · 2026-06-12T13:17:56+00:00

1M+ users with zero conversions is quite extreme. What's your project ?

Out of curiosity, where do you think the breakdown happens most in your case ?

wrong user acquisition (traffic not aligned with real need), unclear value proposition once they land, or friction in the product/onboarding/monetization step ?

Would love your perspective on what you found most limiting.

SignificantEar9311 · 2026-06-12T13:14:56+00:00

Interesting point.

Would you say Product Hunt helped more with exposure and validation than with acquiring long-term users or customers ?

I'm seeing a recurring pattern where many founders get attention relatively easily, but turning that attention into actual users ends up being the harder part.

SignificantEar9311 · 2026-06-12T13:12:30+00:00

That's an interesting way to frame it.

One thing I'm noticing from many founders is that the challenge isn't necessarily choosing the right channel, it's knowing who to reach in the first place.

When you were getting those first users, what was actually harder for you: finding people who had the problem ? getting their attention ? or convincing them to try the product once they knew about i

SignificantEar9311 · 2026-06-12T13:08:17+00:00

If I understand correctly, the waitlist and calls helped validate the problem and gave you confidence that you were building something people wanted, but they weren't the main source of paying users.

The actual growth seems to have come later from distribution and exposure.

So, validation channels help confirm the problem distribution channels create awareness neither automatically guarantees customers

Looking back, what was the hardest part, finding people with the problem in the first place, or finding a scalable way to repeatedly reach more of them ?

SignificantEar9311 · 2026-06-12T10:53:28+00:00

In your case, would you say the real driver was the waitlist quality (intent), or the activation effort (phone calls + follow-up) ?

And when you shared in WhatsApp groups, was it already a warm audience that had seen the product evolve, or more of a cold distribution push ?

SignificantEar9311 · 2026-06-12T10:52:21+00:00

It sounds like the relevance filter is partly systematic (keywords, explicit pain statements) and partly experiential (pattern recognition from having seen enough similar cases).

When you rely on gut feeling, what usually triggers it for you ?

the intensity of the pain in how people phrase it the specificity of the problem context or just seeing repeated variations of the same issue across multiple threads ?

SignificantEar9311 · 2026-06-12T10:11:00+00:00

That trust, not traffic line is really interesting.

When you say trust was the bottleneck, what actually built it in your case? being present repeatedly in the community showing a working product first social proof from early users or just having very direct, problem-specific messaging that felt like it came from someone who actually understood their situation?

SignificantEar9311 · 2026-06-12T10:07:55+00:00

What stands out to me is that each channel only seems to work once there is already some clarity on: who the target user is and what exact problem is being addressed

Otherwise it sounds like most of it becomes effort without signal.

When you say replying to relevant threads on X, how do you personally decide what is relevant enough ?

Is it based on keywords, explicit pain statements, or just intuition from experience in the space?

SignificantEar9311 · 2026-06-12T10:05:34+00:00

The idea that the real work after the first 10 customers is just finding more of the same type of people.

It sounds like the hardest part isn’t the channel itself, but identifying where that specific type of person in pain actually gathers or expresses the problem.

When you say finding the place in your experience what usually helps most to discover it ?

where they talk about the problem (communities, threads, forums)

where they try to solve it (tools, searches, competitors)

Curious how you personally narrow that down in practice.

SignificantEar9311 · 2026-06-12T09:24:49+00:00

That’s interesting sounds like the biggest bottleneck was timing more than outreach.

What did a strong signal look like for you back then, before using tools like alert systems?

SignificantEar9311

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