How to get your first 100 users
·4 min read
Your first 100 users come from manual work. You find people who have the problem, talk to them one at a time, and set each one up yourself. SEO and ads help later, once you know who signs up and what they search for.
Write down where every user came from. That list tells you what to repeat when you go for 1,000.
Start with people you already know
Make a list of everyone you know who has the problem your product solves. Former colleagues, past clients, friends of friends, people you met at events.
Send each one a personal message. Say what you built, who it is for, and ask if they will try it for 15 minutes while you watch.
At the end, ask who else they know with the same problem. A direct intro to the right person often beats a post in a large group.
Find where your audience already talks
Your future users already gather somewhere. Common places are subreddits, niche forums, Slack and Discord groups, Facebook groups, Indie Hackers, Hacker News, and the comments under blogs in your space.
Your competitors can show you where those places are.
- Run Competitor Finder (38 credits) on your site. If your site is too new to rank for anything, enter the best-known product in your space. It lists the sites that rank in Google for the same keywords, sorted into close competitors and large general sites.
- Run Backlink Finder (70 credits) on your closest competitor. It shows the strongest sites linking to them. Pick out the blogs, directories, newsletters and communities. Those are places your audience reads.
- Join the communities. Read the rules. Answer questions for a week before you mention your product.
Reddit has its own rules and culture. Our guide on getting users from Reddit covers how to post there without getting removed.
Reply to people complaining about competitors
Search Reddit, X, forums and review sites for a competitor's name plus words like "alternative", "switching from" or "too expensive". People who post these want something else right now.
Reply only when your product fixes their exact complaint. Say plainly that you built it, for example: "I made X, which handles Y. Happy to set you up." Disclose it every time. Hidden self-promotion often gets you banned and costs you trust in small communities.
See how competitors pitch the same problem
Before you write your first posts and messages, read how competitors describe the problem.
Meta Ad Finder (5 credits) shows the Facebook and Instagram ads a competitor runs right now, with the wording, call to action and landing page. Note which problems they lead with. Then say it in your own words, with the detail your product adds.
Do things that do not scale
Onboard every early user yourself. Book a call, share your screen, and set up their account with them. You see where they get stuck, and they feel looked after, so they are more likely to stay and tell others.
Other things worth doing by hand at this stage:
- Email each new signup from your own address and ask why they signed up.
- Fix a reported bug the same day and tell the person who reported it.
- Import their data for them.
- Send a short thank-you after their first week and ask what is missing.
Launch on launch sites
A launch gives you a burst of visitors on one day and a page that stays up. Product Hunt is free to post on. Hacker News (Show HN), Indie Hackers, BetaList and directories for your niche are other options.
Prepare before launch day: a one-line description, a few screenshots, and time blocked to reply to every comment. Our Product Hunt launch checklist has the full list.
Check the page those visitors land on before you send anyone. A quick preview of your home page on /check-website costs no credits, needs no account and takes about 20 seconds. A broken page wastes the one visit you get from each person.
Answer questions in public
People ask about your problem every day. Answer them well on forums, Q&A sites, LinkedIn and in communities. A good answer can keep bringing people in long after you post it, because others find old threads through search.
AI Question Finder (160 credits) shows the questions people ask Google AI Overviews or ChatGPT about a topic, with the start of each answer and the sources it lists. One platform per run. Use the list to decide which questions to answer first.
Track where each user came from
Keep one spreadsheet with one row per user:
| Column | What to write |
|---|---|
| Name and email | Who signed up |
| Source | The exact thread, person, launch or post |
| Date | When they signed up |
| Active after a week | Yes or no |
Add a "How did you hear about us?" text field to your signup form. Analytics alone often misses it, because links shared in chat apps, Slack and email usually show up as direct traffic.
After your first few dozen users, sort by source. You will usually see one or two sources that bring users who stay. Spend more time there. Those sources are where you start when you work on your first 1,000 users.
Find your competitors and their communities
Start with Competitor Finder to list the sites that rank in Google for the same keywords as yours. Run Backlink Finder on the closest one to see which blogs, directories and communities link to it. AI Question Finder shows what people ask AI about your topic, so you know which questions to answer in public. Traffic figures in these tools are estimates, so use them to compare sites, not to predict visits.