How to get your first 50 customers

First things first. Apologies for not writing as per my content calendar post.

I’ve been struck down by a severe case of the man flu. The world must stop.

I’m at 60% battery life. I’m starting to (slowly) come alive again.

A short one today.

Back in January, I double hatted a 9-5 job and my (previously labelled) side hustle until mid July.

Then I went full time on this thing.

Side hustle. Full hustle.

My earnings from my business - Founders Owl - sat at approx. $3,775.34 in July

Then I went full time, and managed to bring in a total of $23,837.51 in 2024.

I started at just $7 per project in Jan. Now I charge thousands in retainers.

And so..

Here’s how you can get your first 50 customers for:

• A new business

• A new part of your business

• A new product

• A new market

Results Achieved

• 40+ clients this year.

• 100+ first uses for a client's SaaS.

• Helped an agency win 10+ new deals.

• Helped a SaaS fill their pipeline with 10+ inbounds.

Sales Tactics

• Personal network (friends, peers, clients).

• Referrals / intros.

• Content.

• Reviews.

• Public help + value first.

• Deep personalisation.

• Elite customer experience.

Platforms Targeted

• Twitter (timeline and groups).

• Paid & Free Communities (Slack, Discord).

• Reddit (r/SideProject, r/Entrepreneur).

• Discord (Furlough and Loqol servers).

• LinkedIn (timeline and groups).

Executing the Tactics

Free / Low-Cost Offers

• Offer a free service / access for testimonials.

• Offer a free service / access for user feedback.

• Improve product / service with feedback.

• Communicate improvements.

• Share social proof on socials using Senja.io.

Ask for Referrals / Intros

• Spend 30 mins listing everyone you know.

• Talk to people in your network.

• Ask for intros / referrals.

• I credit @JanuBuilds for the early day momentum in Jan: visibility > revenue on day 0.

Be Helpful & Make Friends (Genuinely)

• Always be making online friends with no motive.

• You never know when you’ll help each other.

  • @eliasstravik was my first. :)

• Engage others in Slack communities, Discord, and Reddit.

• Don’t work in a silo.

• Don’t always push your product/service: 90% value, 10% ask.

• Help others and make friends.

  • Truly one of the best ways.

  • They’ll naturally start recommending people to check out your stuff.

• Set up alerts / search for the pains you can solve on Reddit using gummysearch.com.

• Offer your help publicly (like this post).

• Optimise social profiles to ensure people can see your offer/website when they get curious.

• Create lead magnets that solve your ICP’s pain and share for feedback.

Partners

• Find people who run a business with complementary skills.

  • Example: design and dev agencies.

• Offer partnerships to cross-share leads.

• A good partner is one in a market you haven’t reached yet, and takes the offer seriously.

Build in Public + Content Posting

• People follow stories.

• Start posting about you, your likes, dislikes, and your "why" behind your business.

• Post the MVP / behind-the-scenes of your business with images.

• Share short form, long form, threads, images, Q&As, live streams consistently.

• Post deeply researched long forms once a week or fortnight.

  • Repurpose that into 10 more days of shorter content.

• When you get engagement on one, double down on the format for a related topic.

  • Example: My post on partnerships did well, so I did one on internal champion knowledge sharing.

• Do threads on how to solve a pain in X number of steps, with a CTA to contact you.

Bonus Stuff (Only if a SaaS Product)

New Users

• Set up an email marketing process for new users to nurture and build trust + convert to paid.

• Reward feedback to create a two-way loop.

• Create a referral program to develop a flywheel of users.

• Use micro-influencers to promote the product.

Customer Success & Review Sites

• Optimise your product/SaaS G2, Capterra, Trustpilot profiles.

• Respond and resolve all complaints fast, publicly.

• Find bad reviews of competitors on these sites and contact the poster.

• Provide fast customer tech support for your product.

  • This is a MASSIVE USP.

  • Give prospects a document of your support model in calls.

Launch on Product Hunt

• Plan 5 weeks in advance.

• Build momentum for the launch.

• Create videos and posts about you/product.

• Good for a spike of traffic, but not long-term sustainable.

And always, always remember this mantra...