Ask HN: How did you find your first 10 customers for your startup?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11247715

by going_to_800 • 10 years ago

40 21 10 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

Wondering?

gearoidoc2• 10 years ago

It really depends on your product. Is it an app? SaaS?

Have you validated yet?

going_to_8006• 10 years ago

Kinda validated, but I need to hit the 10 customers mark.

My product is a SaaS, outbound live chat for lead generation teams.

gearoidoc2• 10 years ago

Quite a busy space that.

What pain points does your platform offer that others dont?

joshontheweb3• 10 years ago

Twitter. If you are solving a real pain point, there will likely be people complaining about it on twitter. Search for those phrases and offer to solve their problem. I got my first couple hundred users this way. Then it grew organically from there.

going_to_8006• 10 years ago

Awesome, thanks. This could also be used to find what pains people have.

Any suggestion of how to find that? Using keywords like "how can I" ?

joshontheweb3• 10 years ago

It's hard to say without knowing you problem/solution. Perhaps search for your competitor and scan for complaints. My app helps podcasters record their skype/hangouts calls so i search "podcast record skype" or variants of that and look for people complaining about the quality.

joshontheweb3• 10 years ago

Another thing you can try is searching for the hashtags of conferences in your industry.

iqonik7• 10 years ago

I'm aware that I owe you an email reply OP, sorry I have been busy and have stopped cold emailing customers.

Right now, I'm selling to retail / real estate (http://www.retailwizard.co.uk / http://www.propertywizard.io) so to get customers I literally go to their workplace & ask them for 5 minutes of their time. I did try emailing as you know, but I have found going to speak to to them face-to-face to be more effective for my niche.

Obviously email works for other sectors, something I'm looking to explore again in the future.

tixocloud3• 10 years ago

I think that's a great tip.

For your product, would it apply for Canadian retailers/real estate companies as well?

Given that I was focused on real estate with my previous startup, I could help you make the connections in Canada.

iqonik7• 10 years ago

It works worldwide, the only reason I'm concentrating on the UK at the moment is because of my high touch sales process. I'd love to chat more (email in my profile) and I'd appreciate any connections you can make. I'd also be happy to pay you a referral fee.

tixocloud3• 10 years ago

Thanks for asking a very relevant question.

Another tip I can share is going to meetups of your target customer and building relationships.

We're building something that's fairly overlapping (i.e. landing pages, etc. ) but we're more focused on the marketing automation piece. Good luck!

Ask HN: How did you find your first 10 customers for your startup?

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