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

Cold calling seems the be the prevalent approach, which is also mine. Though I am struggling with time. On one hand, I know I need to reach out to potential customers, on the other hand I need/want to work on the product. So not only is my time limited but also I don't like to shift my focus elsewhere.

I wonder if it would make sense to hire someone, some student, to do the outreach for me. Paid per contact and then some bonus for subscription.

Has anyone tried it? I mean, it's still just cold calling but I am wondering whether I should entrust such an important process to someone that is not familiar or invested with the product? After all, you can make the first impression only once.

Not only is it making your first impression, it's also your best opportunity to get candid feedback, observe what positioning resonates with your audience, and create your playbook for working through objections.

You mentioned time is your biggest constraint, and that you need to work on the product.

Is there a milestone where your product will have enough features that you can shift to spending half your time acquiring customers?

The work never ends :) but my point was primarily about focus on the development in case of large features. In between, it's fine to be distracted by customer acquisition.

You are correct though that the first impression is important, so I will just keep doing what I'm doing. On the other hand, I can see hiring someone to go and look for leads, which I can then pursue myself. Seems like a fair compromise.