How to get your first 10 customers

The short answer

Get your first 10 customers by talking to them one at a time. Start with people you know, move to people already complaining about the problem in public, ask about their problem before you mention your product, and charge from the first conversation. Ads, SEO and virality come later, because at ten customers you still need to hear why people buy.

This is older and more proven than any growth hack. Paul Graham wrote in Do Things That Don't Scale in July 2013 that recruiting users one at a time is the most common unscalable thing founders have to do, and that nearly all startups have to do it. Airbnb's founders went door to door in New York. Stripe's would answer a yes with "Right then, give me your laptop" and set the person up on the spot. YC named that the Collison installation.

Lenny Rachitsky's July 2020 review of how fast-growing B2B companies found their first ten customers lands in the same place: personal network, going to where customers already are, and press, and he notes that press is rarely how you get started. That leaves two doors, and both are open to you today.

What founders actually did

Forget the case studies with a funding round in paragraph two. These come from founders answering the question in public, in their own words.

Real first-customer tactics, as the founders reported them
Who and when	What they did	What they reported
Founder, Hacker News, 2024	Emailed friends of friends, then cold email	First 5 to 10 clients from the first, next 50 to 100 from the second
Founder, Hacker News, 2026	Reached out on LinkedIn and talked about their own problem with people	35 users in two weeks
TuBoost maker, r/indiehackers, August 2025	Two weeks of real advice before mentioning the product, then 10 answers for every 1 mention; 30-minute onboarding calls for the first 5 users	10 paying customers and $700, with $0 on ads
Founder, r/microsaas, February 2026	Treated Reddit as a "problem database" and replied with a full solution to people stuck on the problem	First 10 paying customers
Founder, Hacker News, 2017	Spent about a day writing personally to several hundred people	100 weekly active users within a couple of weeks
Founder, Hacker News, 2017	Found people sharing competitors' content, then cold emailed them	Named it as how they got their first paying customers
Founder, Hacker News, 2017	Asked a company for a deposit before starting the company	Paid before the product existed
Founder, Hacker News, 2017	Cold calling	More than 200 noes before the first yes
Des Traynor, Intercom, told in 2017	About 100 personal emails a day, each batch improved by the previous day's replies; later a 4am webinar for nine people in India	All nine signed up
James Hawkins, PostHog, reported 2021	Set a goal of 2 meetings a day, about 2 hours daily	Each conversation led to 2 more contacts
Close.io, reported 2015	Watched for people complaining about a competitor's missing feature	One social mention became over $500 a month

Look at what they share. No big launch, no ad budget. Each one is a person choosing another person and writing to them. Des Traynor, who co-founded a company most of you know, got up at 4am to present to nine people. And look at that cold-calling line. Two hundred noes is the price some founders pay, and they keep going because each no costs less than building another feature nobody asked for.

Find the people who already have the problem

Start with 30 names

Open your contacts, LinkedIn and old inboxes. List former colleagues, past clients and anyone who works where your user works. PostHog's James Hawkins began by mining LinkedIn for relevant contacts, including former coworkers. You do not need them to buy. You need them to buy or to name someone who might.

Then search for pain, not for profiles

People describe their problems in public every day. Search Reddit, X, Hacker News and niche forums for what a frustrated user would type, not what a marketer would type:

"alternative to [competitor]"
"[competitor] too expensive" or "[competitor] doesn't work"
"how do you handle [task]" or "is there a tool for [task]"
"I'm so tired of [task]"

Then pick your threads. The founder who called Reddit a "problem database" in February 2026 went for threads with 0 to 20 comments, accepted 20 to 50, and skipped anything over 100, because an answer under 150 replies is invisible. New threads with a frustrated person in them are where one good reply gets read.

The Next Web's 2015 piece put it plainly: "A competitor's unhappy customer is a hot lead for your company." Reply in public when it truly helps and the community allows it. Our community promotion guide shows you how to stay welcome while you do.

What to say, and what never to say

The question that kills first conversations is "would you use this?" People are polite, so they say yes and then vanish. Rob Fitzpatrick wrote The Mom Test about exactly this: learning whether your business is a good idea when everyone is lying to you. PostHog's advice follows it, asking for specifics instead of "Would you buy this?". Ask what they did last time the problem happened, what it cost them, and what they tried.

Copy this · First message to a stranger

Hi [name], I saw your post about [exact problem] in [place].
I've been working on that problem too. How are you handling it today?
No pitch. I'm trying to understand it properly.

Copy this · When they describe the pain

That's exactly why I built [product]. It [does the one thing] so you don't have to [their words for the pain].
It costs [price]. Want me to set it up with you on a 15-minute call? If it doesn't solve this for you, you'll know before you pay.

Notice how the second message offers to set it up with them. That is the Collison installation for 2026: share your screen, get them to their first result, and do not leave them alone with a signup form.

Charge from the first conversation

A free user tells you the product is fine. A paying user tells you it is worth something. One founder in a 2017 Hacker News thread reported that a company paid a deposit before the company even existed. Another spent 9 months in beta with about 50 users, switched on pricing, and got the first 10 customers from that group. Those nine months are the part you can skip.

Say the price out loud, early. A quick no saves you weeks of follow-ups.
Pick one plan and one number. Your first ten customers will tell you if it is wrong.
Offer a founding price in exchange for a weekly call. It is honest and it makes you a better product.
Track what you earn from the first sale with the MRR calculator. Watching churn at ten customers beats discovering it at a hundred.

The routine that gets you there

PostHog co-founder James Hawkins set himself 2 meetings a day, at about 2 hours daily, with each conversation leading to 2 more contacts. The arithmetic in that article comes to 10 prospects a week and 40 a month. You may not get two meetings a day when you start, so here is a smaller version of it, our own suggestion for one person with a day job:

Five new messages a day, each one naming something specific about the person.
One public reply where you can genuinely help.
One conversation a day, booked or chased.
End every conversation with: "Who else deals with this?" A founder in the same 2017 thread recommended asking everyone you meet for a referral.
Write down the exact words people use for the problem. They become your homepage.

Make sure they can check you out

Here is what happens after your good cold message: the person searches for your product. If they find one lonely homepage, your message just became less believable. If they find your product listed in places they recognize, it looks like something that exists.

That is the reason to sort out listings now rather than at customer one hundred. It costs you a few hours or one small payment, and those pages stay up while you are busy having conversations.

Frequently asked questions

How long does it take to get 10 customers?

It depends on how many conversations you hold, which is the part you control. Reported paths run from weeks to months: one founder in a 2017 Hacker News thread reached 100 weekly active users within a couple of weeks of writing to several hundred people, and PostHog says it took months to reach 10 paying customers.

What if I don't know anyone in my market?

Go to where they already complain. Search forums and Reddit for your competitor's name plus words like "alternative" or "too expensive", and write to the people you find. One founder got paying customers by emailing people who shared competitors' content.

Should my first customers get it for free?

No. Charge from the first conversation, with a founding price if you need one. People who pay give you the truth about whether the product is worth it. A free beta group of 50 took one founder 9 months to turn into customers.

Is cold email or cold DM better?

Use the one your customers actually read. Founders report results from both, along with LinkedIn and Facebook groups. Your message matters more: name their specific situation, keep it short, and ask one question.

What do I do after 10 customers?

Ask each of them what made them buy, where they would have looked for a product like yours, and who else has the problem. Their answers tell you which channel to build next.