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How to Get Your First 10 Customers

33 points by aurenvale

by Beestie

0 subcomment

Imagine 3 states of a potential customer: 1. They have no knowledge of your product/service; 2. They are aware of it and consider it valuable and correctly priced; 3. They actually buy it.
Digital media (email/LinkedIn/Insta/X/etc.) moves people from 1 to 2.
Moving people from 2 to 3 ain't gonna happen with "awareness." You have to get in front of someone and close the sale. There is a lot of stuff in the store that I think is good and fairly priced. But I don't buy the entire store every time I visit. But, if someone in the store shows me one item and gives me a good story, pretty good chance I'm walking out with it. One item out of thousands. Why? Because a human moved me from 2 to 3.
Water doesn't boil at 100° - you have to add a little bit more energy to initiate a phase change. No different.

by aurenvale

0 subcomment

Many founders start their customer search with cold email, LinkedIn, and prospecting tools. But the first 10 customers rarely come from a tool. It starts somewhere else: your network, showing up in person, and a willingness to do things that don't scale.
In this episode of Startup School, YC Visiting Partner Max Kolysh draws on dozens of YC founder stories to explain how to identify the right buyers, start conversations, and turn them into your first customers.

by TowerTall

0 subcomment

There is related post from a year ago. 354 comments. Ask HN: How are you acquiring your first hundred users? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43970837

by kristianp

1 subcomments

Why the first 10? These tips might work for the first 20, 30 or even 50 customers, depending on how much time/money they require.

by backend_dev82

1 subcomments

I guess I am very atypical. My first customer came from Reddit outreach, and also my second, and third and so on. None came from personal network (never really even tried that, maybe i should)
I know its going to stop being so effective at at some point, but so far so good. Different strokes for different folks, I guess.