Playbook / Step 2
Step 2 of the Playbook, First customers ($1,000 a month). The first people pay.
8 lessons from 8 sources, each linked to the original. The full set of 20 is in Wanna OS.
Your first users will not find you; the founders have to go and get them one at a time. Treat manual recruiting as the real job at the start, not an embarrassing stopgap you will outgrow later.
“You can't wait for users to come to you.”— Paul Graham, Do Things that Don't Scale, Jul 2013
Do this: Pick 10 specific people who have the problem and personally message each of them this week.
Kagan replaces surveys and 'would you buy this' questions with a hard test: ask for real money before building anything. Three buyers within two days means there is a business, and zero is cheap information that tells you to change the idea. The short deadline is meant to push you from polishing to asking.
“Find three paying customers in 48 hours, or move on.”— Noah Kagan, How to Validate a Business Idea in 48 Hours (Get Paid First), Sep 2026
Do this: Write down the offer and its price today, then ask ten people for payment or a pre-order before the weekend ends.
A confident opinion about what customers want is still a guess until someone outside your team confirms it. The fix is to go and talk to the people you want to sell to, and return with something you did not know before.
“There are no facts inside the building so get the heck outside”— Steve Blank, Ardent 2: Get Out of My Building, Oct 2009
Do this: Book five customer conversations this week and write down one thing in each that surprised you.
Sivers says to hold off on naming, building or announcing a business until real people are asking for your help. You listen to them, make sure they will pay enough, and serve the first buyer one-on-one. Only after demand is proven do you formalize anything.
“First you find real people whose problem you can solve.”— Derek Sivers, Don't start a business until people are asking you to, Apr 2016
Do this: Book three conversations this week with people who have the problem you want to solve, and ask what they would pay to have it fixed.
Launching does not bring customers on its own, because the world is busy and has no queue for your product. Start with friends, then friends of friends, and reach people one by one until the first real users appear.
“there isn't really lots of people waiting for you to launch your product”— Gustaf Alströmer, Startup School Week 4 Recap, Sep 2019
Do this: List 20 people from your circle who match your target user and ask each for a 15-minute call.
Martell argues that founders feel they must be grateful for any early customer and so avoid asking for real money. He says payment is what makes a customer actually use the product, give feedback and reach results. Those results then become the case studies that bring the next buyers.
“Without a financial commitment, your customer is far less likely to implement your solution”— Dan Martell, Your First 10 Customers: 5 Critical Characteristics You Need To Look For, Nov 2018
Do this: Put a price on your next pilot offer and tell the prospect that paying is a condition of starting, even if the amount is small.
A young company does not sell to the mainstream buyer of established vendors. Aim at a small group of people who like trying new things and will accept rough edges in return for being first.
“As an early-stage company, you're generally selling to a targeted group of early adopters”— Whitney Sales, The Three Frameworks You Need to Kick-start Sales, Jun 2016
Do this: Describe your ideal early adopter in three traits and screen your next ten leads against them.
Hormozi's recipe for the first five customers begins with a plain list, not an ad budget. You gather every contact you already have, pick the channel where most of them live, and message them one by one. Free or heavily discounted first deals are used to get the initial yeses.
“Start by scraping all your contacts across all of your platforms”— Alex Hormozi, How to Get Your First 5 Customers in 10 Steps (LinkedIn post), Aug 2023
Do this: Export every contact from your phone, email and social accounts into one sheet today and send a personal message to the first 20 by Friday.
Paste your product's link. I read it, work out where you are on the Playbook and prepare the next actions — each waits for your OK.