How to get your first customers for a SaaS you built yourself
Updated
You built a product by vibe coding in Codex or Claude Code, launched it, and nobody is buying. At this point most people want to post everywhere at once: a Product Hunt launch, a Reddit post, some ads. A month later it often turns out that a little everywhere adds up to almost nothing anywhere.
Why "a little everywhere" doesn't work
Every place takes time to figure out: where the right people are, how people write there, what they reply to. With five places at once, you never get far enough in any of them for it to start bringing you conversations with buyers.
What matters is not how many channels you use, but which ones. The marketer who runs our sessions has worked in B2B marketing since 2013. At an international building materials manufacturer, she reworked where the advertising money went and which channels the company used to talk to customers, and each inquiry from a potential customer (marketers call it a lead) started costing 30% less. At a metals company, reworking the ads and launching new online channels brought the cost of a lead down by 20%. In both cases the gain came from choosing where to put the effort.
You have no budget, only your time. That makes the choice even more important for you.
Buyer first, channel second
You can't choose where to look for customers until you know who they are. "Anyone who might find it useful" is not a buyer: there is nowhere to go and find those people.
A buyer is a specific person: their job, the kind of company they work at, the task they're dealing with right now and how they handle it today. For example: the front-desk coordinator at a small dental practice who calls patients by hand to remind them of their appointments.
Once you can name the buyer, "where do I look" becomes a simple question: where does this person go for work? If you can't name them yet, start with the marketing basics, which walk through this on an example.
B2B SaaS: the user and the payer are often different people
If you sell to companies (B2B, business to business), the person who uses the product and the person who pays for it are often not the same. In a very small company they may be one person. The front-desk coordinator is the one stuck making the calls, but the practice owner pays. Talk to both: to the first about their task, to the second about money and missed appointments.
Start with people you already know
It's often easiest to start with people who already know you: it's easier for them to reply and easier for them to trust you. Before you go looking for communities, write down everyone who looks like your buyer or knows people like that:
- former colleagues and managers;
- friends who work in the industry you're selling to;
- companies you've worked with as an employee or a freelancer;
- people who have already told you about a problem like this.
Write to each of them personally, not as a mass email. Even if someone won't buy, they may introduce you to someone who will. Ask directly: "Do you know anyone who struggles with this?"
How to pick one channel
When you've run out of people you know, you need a channel: a place where your buyer spends time and where you can start a conversation with them. Ask three questions about each candidate.
- Is your buyer there? Not "lots of people are there", but "front-desk staff from dental practices are there". For example, Slack or Discord communities for their profession, LinkedIn, industry forums, subreddits about their line of work.
- Can you post there yourself, without a budget? A community where you can ask a question or introduce yourself: yes. Ads come later: while you don't know who your buyer is, you pay for random clicks.
- Will anyone read your message? In a small community of people in one profession, your message will probably be noticed. In a huge group where everyone posts everything, it will sink.
Choose the one where all three answers are yes. If none qualifies, go back to the buyer: they're most likely described too broadly.
How to find the right communities
- Search LinkedIn for your buyer's job title and look at what those people post and where they comment.
- Search Google with your buyer's profession plus "Slack community", "Discord", "forum" or "subreddit".
- Ask the buyers you already know: "Where do you read about your work? Which communities are you in?" This is the most accurate way.
Read a community's rules before you post. Many ban self-promotion, and a link to your product can get you removed.
Be careful with builder communities
r/SaaS, r/vibecoding, Indie Hackers and Product Hunt (a site where people show off new products) are good places to get feedback on your product. But the people there are builders like you. Unless you sell to developers, you'll find almost no buyers there.
Meetings are a channel too
At an IT company, the marketer who runs our sessions held two seminars: 80 people came, and 20 of them left an inquiry. If you can't pay for a venue, try a video call or a small webinar for a group from your professional community: show how you solve their problem and answer their questions.
Can't name your buyer, or don't know which channel to pick? That's exactly what we work through in a one-hour session.
What to write to the first person
Writing to strangers is uncomfortable: it feels like you're intruding and they'll take you for a spammer. What makes a message spam is not that you wrote first, but that it's the same for everyone and goes straight to selling. A personal question about someone's work is an ordinary conversation, not an ad.
There's also the fear of failing in public: you publish a post and get silence. Private messages don't carry that risk: if someone doesn't reply, nobody sees it.
Write a short message about their problem, not about your product. For example, to a dental front-desk coordinator:
Hi! I found you in a community for dental front-desk staff. I'm building a tool that reminds patients about their appointments automatically, so nobody has to call them one by one. Could I ask you a couple of questions about how you handle reminders now? I'm not selling anything yet, I want to understand whether this is needed at all.
There's no link and no price in this message. Its goal is a conversation, not a sale.
What to offer your first customers
Try one of three things:
- A paid pilot: a trial period, usually a month, for a small fee, with a clear result at the end;
- A discount for a testimonial: a lower price if the customer lets you tell others about them, for example in a short review on your site (a testimonial); later, say openly that they got a discount for it, otherwise people will trust the testimonial less;
- Hands-on help: you set everything up and connect it for them yourself.
It's better not to give it away completely free: that way you won't learn the main thing, whether anyone is willing to pay for it.
Your first month in the channel
Give a channel at least a month before you judge it. You don't have to stop building: an hour a day on people is enough, and the rest of the time you can write code. Don't expect dozens of inquiries: a few conversations with buyers in the first month is already a good start.
A rough plan:
- Week 1. Read. What questions people ask, what they complain about, which words they use. Don't post about your product.
- Week 2. Answer questions on your topic, helpfully and without a link to your product.
- Week 3. Write about the problem you solve and invite the people who have it to talk. Write privately to those who respond.
- Week 4. Get on calls with the people who are interested. Ask how they handle the task now and what it costs them.
How to propose a pilot after the call
If the call confirmed the problem, don't end it with "I'll get back to you". Propose the next step right away, while the person still remembers what you talked about:
- What you'll do: for example, set up reminders for one practice;
- For how long: usually a month;
- What it costs: say the price out loud, as one number. Don't set it too low: a company may take a very cheap product for a hobby project that will soon be abandoned;
- How you'll both know it worked: for example, patients miss fewer appointments.
If you hear "that's too expensive", ask what would have to change for it to be worth it. The answer will tell you more than a polite yes. If the person you're talking to doesn't make the decision, ask them to introduce you to the person who does, and suggest a call with the three of you.
How to tell a channel is working
You don't need complex analytics. One number is enough: how many conversations with potential buyers the channel brought you in a month. Likes and views don't count.
If there are no conversations, check in this order:
- Are you writing to the right people? Are they really your buyer, or just the people who are easy to reach? The problem is often here, not in the wording.
- What are you writing? Is the message about your product or about the person's problem? Would you understand it if you were the buyer?
- Is it the right channel? If the people are right and the message is clear, but there are still no conversations, change the channel.
If you're having conversations but nobody buys, the problem is most likely not the channel. Then the question is the offer, the price or the product itself. That's unpleasant to hear, but it's better to find out after ten conversations than after six months of new features.
FAQ
Do I need ads to get my first customers?
Usually not: first customers come from conversations. Ads help later, once you know who pays and what convinced them.
How many conversations do I need before I learn something?
For a start, about ten conversations is usually enough if your buyers are similar to each other; if they differ, you need more. When new conversations stop telling you anything new, you've learned something.
How do I get first customers for a B2B SaaS if I have no contacts in the industry?
Start with the professional communities where your buyer spends time. First ask for advice on your topic there instead of selling, and then write privately to the people who responded: people reply to a personal message more often than to a post addressed to everyone.
What's next
Once the first conversations start, the next questions follow: what to charge your first customer, how to write to strangers without it looking like spam, and what to tell a customer's IT team if they ask about the security of a product built with AI. These are the topics of the next guides.
Sources
- Guest, G., Bunce, A., & Johnson, L. (2006). How Many Interviews Are Enough? Field Methods, 18(1), 59–82. — on about ten conversations with similar people showing the main themes
- Hennink, M., & Kaiser, B. N. (2022). Sample sizes for saturation in qualitative research: A systematic review of empirical tests. Social Science & Medicine, 292, 114523. — on 9 to 17 conversations being enough with similar people, and more with different ones
- Barron, G., & Yechiam, E. (2002). Private e-mail requests and the diffusion of responsibility. Computers in Human Behavior, 18(5), 507–520. — on a message to one person getting more and fuller replies than one sent to several
- Schmidt, J., & Bijmolt, T. H. A. (2020). Accurately measuring willingness to pay for consumer goods: a meta-analysis of the hypothetical bias. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 48(3), 499–518. — on people overstating what they would pay, by 21% on average, when no money changes hands
- Shampanier, K., Mazar, N., & Ariely, D. (2007). Zero as a Special Price: The True Value of Free Products. Marketing Science, 26(6), 742–757. — on free things seeming worth more than they are, so a yes to free says little about demand
- Johnston, W. J., & Bonoma, T. V. (1981). The Buying Center: Structure and Interaction Patterns. Journal of Marketing, 45(3), 143–156. — on several people taking part in a company's purchase
- Schmitt, P., Skiera, B., & Van den Bulte, C. (2011). Referral Programs and Customer Value. Journal of Marketing, 75(1), 46–59. — on customers who come through a referral being worth more than others
- Denoo, L., Soh, P.-H., & Clarysse, B. (2026). From strong ties to no ties: Configurations for first-customer acquisition in tech startups. Journal of Business Venturing, 41(2), 106570. — on first customers coming both through people founders know and without them
If you'd like to go through your product with a marketer, book a session: 1 hour for $120.
You leave with short written takeaways: who your buyer is, how to explain the product to them, where to find them, what to charge, and whether you need ads yet. Then you do the work yourself.