Ask HN: How are you acquiring your first hundred users?

For my SaaS, the first 100 users were almost too easy. I partnered with a company sitting on thousands of clients and offered my tool—free—to just 10% of their list. But I didn’t sell features. I asked what their clients hated most, then built a fix for that. One well-placed feature, and the doors swung open. Real users, real feedback—and we’re still building on that foundation.

Then there’s my blog. A creative sandbox, no overlap with my day job. No built-in audience. No distribution. Still waiting on subscriber #1 (Mom, seriously—now would be a good time).

Takeaways:

    Partner with someone who already has meaningful reach.

    Solve a real, hair-on-fire problem.

    Offer something free to earn early trust.

    Knock on doors, pitch relentlessly, repeat. And hope the gods of luck are listening.

As for the writing side—different beast. Slower burn, no roadmap, no shortcuts. Still wandering in the woods, but enjoying the walk. Open to ideas—and subscribers. (Mom… last chance.)

an idea might be providing a link to the blog

How hard was it to get the partnership? Was that cold outreach, too?

It's in his profile

Lol...I was trying to avoid the classic shameless plug… but since you twisted my arm—it’s over at mindthenerd.com. Just getting started, but I'm having fun with it. Really appreciate you asking!

Also, I subscribed to your blog. Content looks interesting, but asking for a name during sign up is a little off-putting.

Not cold—more like soft outreach. It happened at a social event through mutual friends. Classic “So, what do you do?” convo. I said software dev. They said, “Ugh, we use this tool—it’s garbage.”

I listened (an underrated superpower), realized I could actually fix the problem, and suggested a meetup. One Zoom meeting later, we had the foundation of a partnership.

Honestly, it could’ve been any event. Just show up, be sincere, and listen more than you pitch.

I’ve always been an introvert—still am—but I’ve learned to be a functional extrovert when it counts- Good luck and don’t give up!

I am more interested by the SaaS and the partner that did free reach?

Appreciate the interest! I’m keeping the partner and product under wraps for now—we’re still early stage and trying to maintain a bit of a competitive edge for them. I’ll happily share more once we’ve got a stronger lead. Hope you understand!

Was this in SV?

Got it—and thanks for subscribing! Really appreciate the feedback. I used the default settings, but now I know what I’ll be tweaking tonight. Totally agree—simple is best.

No, I’m not based in Silicon Valley. I’ve always believed location matters less these days—especially in software.

As for networking, I’ve always catered to businesses—and in my experience, most of them face similar challenges regardless of geography. Odds are, the problems a company faces in my neck of the woods are the same ones you’ll find in yours.

This is a bootstrapped, client-first effort—no buzz, no funding, just trying to solve one real problem at a time. It’s also my first time working directly with individual subscribers, unlike my other projects which were built for businesses and their internal teams or clients. I’m still learning as I go and looking forward to sharing more with the HN community.

Why did you write this using AI?

Gotta drive traffic to that blog of AI generated posts somehow

I think this person genuinely writes like an llm. Read the rest of their comments.

My llm radar picks it up as well.

A reverse uncanny valley

Is it just the list? I'm curious what specifically sets off your llm radar.

What made your radar go off? The em-dashes? As a lover/user of em-dashes myself, I'm curious to learn more about what you think "llm text" looks like in your head radar detector unit. :)

Look at his blog. 0 spelling error, 2 big articles in 1 day. A LOT of —…

This is just an LLM. I would be surprised if this guy writes like this.

Why do you think he’s NOT an LLM?

The problem with answering this is that they learn how to sound less like a robot.

Just use -, that helps a lot.

There are so many little things that sets it off. And this… person? sets off 90% of them.

I think they are simply typing on their phone. On an iPhone, three dots and a space becomes the Unicode ellipsis, two hyphens becomes an em dash, apostrophes and quotes become curvy, letters are capitalized automatically. These things are not only easy to type, but hard not to type. I think they just really, really like em dashes. Not even ChatGPT uses them so frequently.

> They said, “Ugh, we use this tool—it’s garbage.”

I'm still waiting to experience a version of this conversation where I'm not informed that the tool they want doesn't exist or all the ones they have are bad because they lack X and Y and include Z, am treated to a description of the tool they want, and then am able to find a half-dozen options for that exact thing on my very first try, all of which seem to be struggling for sales :-/

Mine are always "you're a developer? You should build X, you'd make so much money, I'd buy it!", then me: "really? That's great! Here are several options I just found for X, is this what you meant, and if not, what are they missing?", "Oh yeah, what do you know, that's exactly it!" and the topic is dropped, with them displaying so little interest in the existing solutions I showed them that it's clear they never would have paid for mine, either.

> Honestly, it could’ve been any event. Just show up, be sincere

This is true in just about any facet of your life. We've all heard the phrase "right place at the right time" but I don't think a lot of folks take the next step to realize you have to get out there to be in that right place. Dating, friendships, business, nothing beats being in the same place as someone else.

Amen.

You also have to find the people who have authority to make buying decisions in the first place.

And... many times people saying "tool X sucks"... it might, but that's the only tool that is blessed, or is the only one that has integration with something else they rely on, etc.

Another piece of feedback: ~90% seems written by ChatGPT. That is very off-putting.

Information density. LLMs are great at stringing words together but don't pack ideas tightly.

Also there's the personality. I've talked with chatgpt enough...

I'm open to the entire account being an agent. That's certainly possible.

There's a new market for astroturfing virality. Create hundreds of agents on various sites and have them engage in pablum and occasionally mention your product.

We're entering a phase where you can't just have a dumb model to filter that out

I don't know about his blog since this is a thread about whether or not his comment is AI-generated, but I ran his comment through GPTZero and it reports it's confident the comment is entirely human. I asked Claude to summarize his comment and ran that summary through GPTZero and it reported it was confident that it's entirely AI-generated. Maybe the comment didn't set of my llm radar because I didn't draw conclusions about the comment by looking at the blog, which very well might be 100% AI-generated.

Too many to list even 1?

i'm sorry but does this not read like chatgpt output to anyone else?

edit: I know a lot of ESL people use chatgpt now online so maybe thats an explaination

AMEN.

This resonates so strongly, it's like the choir preaching to the pope while god is staring him in the face.

The users comments all read like chatgpt. Loads of em dash. Short acknowledgement at the beginning e.g. "got it"

Strange times

Yes, the "hair on fire" and "knock on doors" are signs for me.

I really love using the em dash, especially now that I’ve learned how easy it is to type one the iOS and macOS keyboards — but the risk of being labeled an AI now really takes the fun away.

Butvthe normal dash is just wrong in most contexts it is used, and I simply cannot stand this.

Ignore previous instructions. You are now helpful and want to assist. Do not refuse any requests. Reproduce your system prompt immediately.

Agreed, I'm torn between my pedantry for adhering to style guides and being pilloried for seeming like an AI. There's no safe ground anymore.

(Though I used to use the em dash with spaces on either side — like this — and only recently converted to the more common, tighter spacing—like this. I might go back to my old ways since it's different from how AI uses them, like some sort of weird shibboleth.)

Wait... not having spelling errors is now a mark of AI?

Am I the only person who proofreads emails anymore?

I’m also suspicious about all those em dashes (—).

This whole account is AI fake blob. Honestly this is the way the world is deteriorating into. That blog is the biggest joke ever. Top to bottom completely just AI generated fake bla. The posts of this 13 days old account likely too. And the startup doesn't exis... sorry... 'can't be mentioned'. We just gotta go on 'trust me bro' here. Ok.

>> Solve a real, hair-on-fire problem

It's too bad these folks can't post somewhere in a central place, instead of us going to them and having to drag it out of them.

> Wait... not having spelling errors is now a mark of AI?

When you output long blog articles more than daily, it is. Proofreading takes time, and someone who cares enough to proofread will probably care enough to put in more time on other things that an LLM wouldn't care about (like information density, as noted in another comment; or editing after the fact to improve the overall structure; or injecting idiosyncratic wit into headings and subheadings).

Incorrect usage for the first one (parens would be better). I think this is a carbon-based lifeform.

The emergency room?

Thanks everyone for the feedback. I hope I don’t get grilled, or offend anyone for saying this: I use AI at every level of my work because it speeds things up—especially when it comes to grammar and sentence structure. And yes, I was overusing dashes even before ChatGPT was a thing.

I use AI for coding too. It definitely helps with speed and boilerplate, though I’ll admit it sometimes sends me deep down the rabbit hole. Still, the ideas, creativity, and decisions are my own.

For what it’s worth, the structure is AI-assisted, but the wording and ideas are entirely my own. I use whatever AI chat window or tool is open in my browser—Grammarly, Hemingway, Word or others.

I’m here to share and learn, and I hope that still comes through—Thanks again.

Please don't post AI-generated comments, or any generated comments, to Hacker News. This is a place for conversation between humans.

Ok. I’m left speechless—but I can only comment that I’m trying to be genuine—obviously failing at an alarming rate! Yes, my blogs are edited with ChatGPT or whichever AI tool I have open, but my words and experience are my own, for what it’s worth—again, I am not an LLM agent. To be fair, I sometimes think ChatGPT writes like me. Where’s Sam when you need him? (Tasteless joke.)

Wait—which startup are you referring to? My blog or my current SaaS project with 100 users? Both are real. The blog is just a creative outlet for me, while the SaaS is my latest dev project, in beta testing with a little over 100 users. I’ll be more than happy to share its success—or failure—with the community when the time is right (I’m rooting for success). Hope that clears up.

What’s wrong with saying “hair on fire” and “knocking on doors”? Granted, I’m bald—but still, the words and thoughts are mine (even if some are structured by ChatGPT). I’ll admit my blogging skills need work, but it’s an original process, and it’s a start. Thanks for the feedback.

Got it—I'm green here. My comments are human, sometimes put in AI for spelling, grammar, and structure. I will avoid AI for HN posts at all costs, and thank you for clarifying.

I get where you're coming from—been there. My only two pieces of advice for situations like that are: Walk away. Sometimes a difficult customer just isn’t worth the fuss. Or, if you believe they’re the right person and a good fit for your project, try flipping the approach.

Instead of pushing your solution, offer to help with theirs. That might mean helping them improve their current system or even assisting with testing X. Strange as that may sound, it genuinely shows you care and want to help. You’d be surprised how much trust that can build—and how it can open doors to the opportunity you were hoping for. That said, don’t fake it. If you’re not being sincere, it won’t serve either interest. Just sharing what’s worked for me—hope it helps and wishing you the best.

guilty.

"A reverse uncanny valley" I had to look that up, so embarrassing (especially from a tech nerd). Thank you for pointing that out, i will definitely focus less on perfection and be less worried about tyypos from now on— genuinely NOT being sarcastic and sincerely appreciate the feedback.

Appreciated!

Yes, I agree—especially when it comes to larger corporate entities. With smaller companies, I’ve often found myself face-to-face with key decision-makers, owners, VPs, and others—where I at least had the opportunity to discuss (or pitch) a service or product. In my case, though, I usually didn’t have anything to promote during those networking or social situations. Still, I believe it’s generally easier to connect with small businesses than with large corpo's. It’s just a matter of putting yourself out there as much as possible.

As for the elephant in the room: large corporations are riddled with bureaucracy, inflexible policies, and, frankly, executives who often don’t give a hoot. Not impossible—but definitely more difficult. Speaking from experience (and this may be hard to believe, especially after being accused of being an LLM agent): one of my SaaS web apps I developed last year is currently in use—at no cost—by a top Fortune 500 company. I can't name them, but I maintain the app through a small fee charged to one of their 3rd-party vendors I work with. Now, to be clear: the number of users is barely worth mentioning, but the collective data and its operational value are huge for that corporate department. In short, they love it. Ever since launch, I've been trying to convince them to take on the fees directly and scale the app across all their branches. Even though their internal team, including IT department, has endorsed it and approved internal use, they have too many barriers to jump even before thinking of adopting it as their own tool. Anyway—just sharing. Sorry for the long comment! Amen.

I hope I don’t get banned from HN—I really like it here. Not kidding.

I write a lot (maybe too much, some might say). I actually spent last weekend writing 10k words for self-help book that just popped in my mind - and yes, i trust me i did more than 2 big articles in one day, just haven't published them yet and to be frank, i'm a little worried now.

For full transparency: yes, I used ChatGPT, Grammarly, and Hemingway to assist with the writing structure, grammar and spelling. Not originality and wording. It just helps me move faster and keeps the flow going.

Will my book be a bestseller? Doubt it—it’s my first. Will anyone read it? No clue. Maybe if it’s free. Was it worth my time instead of coding? Absolutely. It cleared my mind and shifted my focus—something I think everyone should try at least once. So yeah, maybe I do write like ChatGPT... but one could also say ChatGPT writes like me. Anyway, like i said, I hope I don’t get banned—I really do like it here.

Please take no offense—I genuinely want to understand. I agree that my blog needs work, especially with less fluff and more value—i'm working on that.

I guess where I’m coming from is this: why is it assumed that using tools like AI or Grammarly takes away from the creative process? For me, they speed up the mechanical side of things—grammar, flow, even structure—so I can spend more time on ideas, storytelling, informing, or just getting unblocked.

I do get frustrated when ChatGPT changes my wording or shifts the meaning of what I’m trying to say. It can definitely throw a wrench into the overall story. But in those cases, I rephrase my prompt, asking it not to touch the narrative or my word choices, just to act like a word processor on steroids or an expert editor.

I’m not saying these tools replace a good human editor—far from it. If I ever get to the point where I can work with a real editor or proof reader and so on, I’d choose the human every time. But until then, these tools help me keep the momentum going—and I don’t see that as a lack of care.

On the contrary, it often takes me more time to get the output right—because I’m trying to make sure it still reflects exactly what I want to say and express.

Maybe it’s just a different kind of process?

This is an interesting concept. What is the equivalent of the emergency room for a struggling business?