Ask HN Successful Startups: How did you find your first customer?
It was inspiring to read the post from a couple of days ago 'Who is living off their startup fulltime?' http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1924909
I would like to learn the art of finding your FIRST customer, arranging meeting/phone call with them, getting them to talk to you and eventually signing them up as your beta customer.
How did you go about this?
Thanks
@hariis's retrospective from 2010 captures the critical transition from initial concept to the first dollar of customer revenue.
Core Principles for Independent Builders:
Early traction rarely comes from passive launches; it requires direct manual outreach, personal network activation, and high-touch customer support.
Narrowing down the target audience to a specific niche allows solo founders to out-position generic horizontal competitors.
Underpricing out of fear of rejection is common; founders who set premium pricing often discover higher customer satisfaction and lower churn.
Community Debate Themes:
Discussions analyzed Show HN launch mechanics, cold DM outreach conversion rates, and the psychology of validating customer demand before writing code.
CATEGORY Zero to One →
HISTORICAL ERA Web 2.0 Genesis (2007–2013)
COMMUNITY SCORE ★ 49 points
TOTAL DISCUSSIONS 10 comments
My first customer came from my own personal network as well.
The first customer that did _not_ come from my personal network was a result of posting to app directories such as feedmyapp.com and the like.
The best advice I can give on signing and keeping your first customer is to _make them happy_. Be nice. Crack jokes. When they call or email you, respond immediately. Your first customers are really important because they're vetting your business model in addition to trying your product.
Accept/understand that, as you observe your first customers interacting with your product, you're going to have to make changes. Make them quickly and reasonably.
Every company is unique, but that's how I found and retained my first customers.
We contacted leaders in our industry that we knew personally from networking, and asked them to beta it. We had a new product that hadn't been seen before in our industry, directed specifically and precisely for their needs, and we proved that they would save money immediately. So, we piqued their interest and got them to invest their time in the beta.
Other people we contacted were active people in the active industry forums. This helped get the word out by way of trust.
We got our first customers from my existing blog / email list - before launching the startup I had been blogging for 2+ years.
Second wave came after the first mentions on relevant blogs/new media outlets (http://blog.traindom.com/places-where-to-submit-your-startup-for-coverage/)
Third wave I'd say came from participating in discussions in relevant forums.
I would actually be interested in not how did you get your first customer, but how did you get the ones after that.
We launched just like the usual via TechCrunch and Wired, so we made our first dollar and got our first customer quite quickly.
Now we are dealing with the struggle everyone else has which is how do you get your next customer after the PR blast.
Any of you get paying customers before you had a product? How did that work?
Also, how do you handle all the feedback from early customers on product changes? Obviously some are great requests, but many customers make requests are outside of the scope, and could tempt you to change course (if you're on the right course :-)