Playbook / Lessons / First buyers

Go out and recruit users by hand

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.

More in this pack

• Three paying customers in 48 hours
• There are no facts inside your building
• Find real people with a problem first
• Nobody is waiting for your launch

Get your plan

All steps · Trust · Pricing