Finding Your First 100 Users

Why the first hundred are different

The first hundred users are not a smaller version of the first ten thousand. You find them by hand, one conversation at a time, and each one teaches you what the product is actually for and which words to use on the landing page.

This also means the tactics are different. Paid ads, big partnerships and growth loops rarely make sense yet. What works is slow, direct and a bit unglamorous. The good news is that it costs time rather than money, and time is what a solo maker usually has more of.

Below are the channels that tend to work at this stage, roughly in the order most makers try them.

Communities where your users already are

Start by writing down where your ideal user spends time online when they are thinking about the problem you solve. Not where tech people hang out in general; where your users go. For a tool aimed at wedding photographers, that might be a photography forum and a couple of Facebook groups, not a startup Discord.

Then show up as a participant before you show up as a founder.

• Answer questions for a few weeks first. Help people with the problem even when your product is not the answer.
• Read the self-promotion rules. Many communities allow it on a specific day or in a specific thread. Follow that exactly.
• When you do share, lead with the problem. "I kept losing track of client revisions, so I built a small tool for it" lands better than a feature list.
• Stay for the replies. The comments are the valuable part.

A single well-received post in the right community can bring more engaged users than a big launch, because everyone reading it already has the problem.

Building in public

Building in public means sharing progress, numbers and decisions openly as you go, usually on X or a blog. It works as a slow accumulator: each post reaches a few people, some follow, and over months you build an audience that is interested in what you ship next.

It works best when:

• You share specifics: what you tried, what broke, what you learned.
• You post consistently rather than in bursts.
• You talk to your users' world, not only to other makers. An audience of fellow founders is supportive but rarely buys a tool for dentists.

It is also easy to overdo. Build in Public Without Burning Out covers how to keep it sustainable. Browsing the X posts in this catalog is a good way to see the range of styles.

Cold outreach, done politely

Cold outreach has a bad reputation because most of it is bad: templated, long and self-centred. Done well, it is one of the most reliable ways to get early users for a niche B2B product.

The principles:

• Pick people who very likely have the problem. Someone who posted about it publicly, or whose job clearly involves it.
• Write to one person, not a list. Mention the specific thing that made you think of them.
• Keep it short. Three or four sentences. What you built, why you thought of them, a clear and easy ask.
• Ask for feedback, not a sale. "Would you be up for trying it and telling me what is missing?" is easier to say yes to.
• Follow up once, then stop. One polite nudge after a week is fine. More than that is pestering.

Say you send 40 carefully targeted messages. If 10 reply and 4 try the product, that is a good result at this stage, and those 4 conversations will teach you more than a thousand anonymous visitors.

Always respect anti-spam rules and the platform's terms. Never scrape personal emails and blast them.

SEO for small sites

Search traffic takes months to build, which is exactly why you should start early. A small site will not rank for broad terms, but it can rank for specific, low-competition queries that your users actually type.

• Target long, specific queries. "How to track freelance invoice payments in a spreadsheet" is winnable; "invoicing software" is not.
• Write pages that genuinely answer the question, then mention your product where it is relevant.
• Build useful free tools. A small calculator or generator related to your product can attract steady search traffic and links.
• Comparison and alternative pages, written honestly, capture people who are already shopping.
• Get the basics right: descriptive titles, fast pages, a sitemap, sensible internal links.

Expect little for the first few months. SEO is a compounding channel, and the compounding starts slow.

Directories and launch lists

Directories and curated lists are low effort and low yield individually, but they add up, and some send steady referral traffic for years.

• Submit to directories relevant to your category, especially niche ones.
• Get listed in curated catalogs like this one through the submit page.
• Look for "awesome" lists on GitHub if your product is developer-facing and open source.

Do not pay for directory listings that promise huge traffic. Most of them do not deliver it.

Integrations and marketplaces

If your product connects to a larger platform, that platform's app marketplace or integration directory can be a strong channel. People browsing a marketplace are already committed to the host platform and actively looking for add-ons.

• Build the integration your users ask for first. It doubles as a distribution channel.
• Write a clear marketplace listing with screenshots and a specific description.
• Ask early users for reviews, since marketplaces often rank by them.

The tradeoff is dependence. A marketplace can change its rules, fees or ranking at any time, so try not to let it become your only channel.

What to avoid

• Buying followers, upvotes or reviews. It is against almost every platform's rules and destroys trust when noticed.
• Posting the same link in twenty communities in one day. It reads as spam and often gets you banned.
• Chasing vanity metrics. A thousand signups from a giveaway who never activate are worth less than twenty users with the real problem.
• Offering deep discounts to strangers too early. You attract bargain hunters and learn little about whether the product is worth its price.
• Waiting until the product is perfect. The first hundred users are how it gets better.

Putting it together

A realistic weekly plan: most outreach time on one or two communities and direct conversations, a search-focused article every week or two, a few public progress posts, and a directory submission when you have a spare hour.

Track which channel each user came from. After thirty or so users a pattern usually appears, and you can shift your time toward it. If you have not launched yet, pair this guide with The Indie Launch Checklist, and when the first person pays, read Getting Your First Paying Customer.

FAQ

How long does it take to get 100 users?

It varies enormously. For many solo products it takes several months of consistent effort. Some never get there, and that is useful signal about the problem or the audience.

Should I offer the product for free to get early users?

A free trial or a free tier can help. Giving everything away with no path to paying tends to attract people who will never convert. Early users who pay, even a little, give you much clearer feedback.

Which channel is best?

The one where your specific users already are. There is no universal answer, which is why talking to users matters more than copying someone else's playbook.