How do I get my first 10 users?

Ship a working demo, DM 30 people who fit your ICP on Twitter/LinkedIn/Reddit, and offer to onboard them 1-to-1. Ten users out of 30 warm asks is normal. It does not scale — that's the point of the first ten.

How do I get my first 100 users?

Layer three sources: a launch on 2–3 boards (rankraw, Hacker News, a niche subreddit), one active community you post in weekly, and continued 1-to-1 outreach. First 100 usually lands inside 30 days once distribution is on.

Do I need an audience to get my first users?

No. Audience helps compress the timeline; it isn't the ingredient. The ingredient is a product that solves a felt problem plus 20 minutes a day of manual distribution.

// guide · first users

Getting Your First Users

Cold-outbound, communities, launch boards, and 1-to-1 DMs — the real playbook indie founders use to get their first 100 users without an audience.

The awkward truth about the first 10

The first ten users are almost never inbound. They come from DMs, group chats, and the coworker who owed you a favor. That's fine — the goal isn't scale, it's learning.

If you can't get ten users by asking people directly, more traffic won't fix it. You have a positioning problem, not a distribution problem.

The 30-DM starter

List 30 people who fit your ideal user profile — active on Twitter, LinkedIn, Reddit, or a specific Slack/Discord.
Send a short, specific DM: what you built, why you built it, ask if they'd try it. No pitch deck, no landing page dump.
Offer to walk them through onboarding on a call or Loom. Ten out of thirty will say yes — that's your foundation.

The three-source layer for the next 90

Launch boards. Ship on rankraw, Hacker News (Show HN), and one niche board that matches your category. Same week, different angles.
One active community. Pick one — a subreddit, a Slack, an Indie Hackers group — and post genuinely useful content weekly. Not links, not pitches.
Continued outreach. Keep sending 5 DMs a day. This is the compounding channel most founders quit too early.

What to measure early

Signups mean nothing. Activation and week-2 retention mean everything. If ten people activate but two come back next week, ship faster — you have a real problem to solve.

Talk to every churned user. One 20-minute call beats a week of analytics guessing.

FAQ

How do I get my first 10 users?: Ship a working demo, DM 30 people who fit your ICP on Twitter/LinkedIn/Reddit, and offer to onboard them 1-to-1. Ten users out of 30 warm asks is normal. It does not scale — that's the point of the first ten.
How do I get my first 100 users?: Layer three sources: a launch on 2–3 boards (rankraw, Hacker News, a niche subreddit), one active community you post in weekly, and continued 1-to-1 outreach. First 100 usually lands inside 30 days once distribution is on.
Do I need an audience to get my first users?: No. Audience helps compress the timeline; it isn't the ingredient. The ingredient is a product that solves a felt problem plus 20 minutes a day of manual distribution.

Get in front of the rankraw feed

Free to submit, no midnight reset, no editorial thumb. Ship raw — the feed does the rest.

submit your product →how ranking works

Related playbooks

Launch Your SaaS

A 14-day launch checklist that ships.

How to Get Users

Channel-by-channel breakdown of what still works.

Advertise Your SaaS for Free

Zero-budget promotion tactics that compound.

Advertise My App

Paid and organic playbook for launching an app.

→ not sure where to start? pick by intent

Get the indie-founder playbook

One short email a week — the launch tactics, sandbox tricks, and distribution plays we see actually working on rankraw. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.