You've built the product. Now comes the hard part: getting someone to buy it.
90% of startups fail. And in most cases the product was fine — what was missing were customers. Not because the market didn't exist, but because the founder spent 18 months building the product and 0 months building distribution. The first 100 customers are the hardest and most important: they validate the product, generate first revenue, and create initial word of mouth. But they don't come on their own — and they don't come with the same strategies that work for established businesses.
Strategy 1: Direct sales (doesn't scale, but works immediately)
The first 10-20 customers don't come from ads or SEO. They come from the founder picking up the phone, sending LinkedIn messages, going to events, and talking to real people. It's not scalable — but it doesn't need to be. It needs to validate that the product solves a problem people will pay for. If you can't sell one-to-one, you won't sell one-to-thousand. The first 20 customers are a sales test, not a marketing test.
Strategy 2: Community before product
Build an audience before you have something to sell. A blog, a newsletter, a LinkedIn profile, a Telegram group on a topic in your industry. When you launch the product, you already have people who know you, respect you, and are ready to listen. You don't need 10,000 — but 500 people following you before launch changes everything.
Strategy 3: Product Hunt, marketplaces, and launch platforms
If your product is digital (SaaS, app, tool), launching on Product Hunt can generate 500-5,000 visitors in one day — for free. For physical products: Kickstarter, Indiegogo. For services: industry marketplaces (Clutch for agencies, Upwork for freelancers). These platforms already have the traffic — you just need to show up with a clear message and a page that converts.
".(_et("ctr"))."
".(_et("sia"))."
".(_et("cn"))."
".(_et("b1"))."
".(_et("b2"))."
".(_et("b3"))."
