In the beginning, when the goal was to go from 0 to 100 users, I had no following and a plan to grow without spending any money on marketing.
This path is 100% possible. I’ve gone through it myself, so I know it works.
It will require time and effort from you, because if you’re not spending money, that’s what you have to spend, but it’s absolutely worth it in the end.
Here's the path we took (2 people) to get our first 100 users:
- Our absolute first users came from our idea validation post on Reddit
- It was a post titled “Let’s exchange feedback!” where we got feedback on our idea and gave others feedback in return
- We DMed those who gave feedback when we released our MVP and a few of them signed up
- We also made a launch post in the same sub (was allowed in that sub)
- We would post a few times on Reddit later on sharing our journey and the small lessons we had learned so far
- Our marketing strategy after this was to be very active in founder communities on X
- This was mainly in “Build in Public” but also in “Startup Community”
- Taking a lot of action is key, so we set a daily goal of 3 posts and 50 replies each
- Posting consisted of:
- Providing value first: Shared helpful advice and lessons we learned from our building journey.
- Engaging with others: Replied to other posts, connected with people, offered help where we could.
- Building hype: Celebrated even the smallest wins publicly (e.g. getting our first 3 users, first 20 users, etc.).
- Product mentions: Mentioned our product when we genuinely thought it would help someone with their problem.
- We were two people doing it and we managed to get traction pretty quickly within the community, so as a solo founder it may or may not take longer
- At the end of they day, if your product doesn’t resonate with the community it’s going to be hard to get attention
- A good (or at least interesting) product will always be key, combined with the right marketing of course
This method can get you your first 100 users and it doesn’t require money, but it does take time and effort.
I hope this post helps you and inspires you to take action.
When it gets tough, keep the goal in mind and remember why you're doing this.