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

560 points amanchanda | 10 comments | 13 May 25 08:41 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source | bottom

I am building a B2C AI SaaS with $50/month price. How would you go about getting with first 100 users and then the next 500 users.

What we are currently doing: 1) Cold outreach to power users - to convert them into affiliates. 2) Cold outreach to individuals who have target ICP communities. 3) SEO for more long term (not for the first 500)

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ednite ◴[13 May 25 14:09 UTC] No.43973175[source]▶
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.)
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d0liver ◴[13 May 25 14:17 UTC] No.43973260[source]▶
How hard was it to get the partnership? Was that cold outreach, too?
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1. ednite ◴[13 May 25 14:35 UTC] No.43973442[source]▶
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!

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2. jderick ◴[13 May 25 15:55 UTC] No.43974318[source]▶
Was this in SV?
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3. ednite ◴[13 May 25 16:42 UTC] No.43974869[source]▶
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.

4. ◴[13 May 25 17:57 UTC] No.43975771[source]▶
5. alabastervlog ◴[13 May 25 18:51 UTC] No.43976312[source]▶
> 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.

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6. thesuitonym ◴[13 May 25 18:57 UTC] No.43976369[source]▶
> 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.

7. lowercased ◴[13 May 25 18:58 UTC] No.43976377[source]▶
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.

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8. jongjong ◴[13 May 25 20:41 UTC] No.43977476{3}[source]▶
AMEN.

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

9. ednite ◴[14 May 25 01:40 UTC] No.43979828[source]▶
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.

10. ednite ◴[14 May 25 02:19 UTC] No.43980047{3}[source]▶
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.