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559 points amanchanda | 2 comments | | HN request time: 0.421s | source

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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gsaines ◴[] No.43976068[source]
I don't intend this to come off as confrontational or cynical, but I think this question (and many of the responses in this thread) are mistaking the answer for the question.

What I mean is that you have to understand what you most want to accomplish. If you want to build a growing business, the best way to do that is not to start from a product and then figure out how to attract users, it's to test product / user acquisition channels together.

I have some authority in the space because I've done it the wrong way twice! www.skritter.com is the first company I built way back in 2008 and growing it was really challenging. It's a niche within a niche and most growth tactics simply didn't work. I'm proud that it's become so durable and taught so many people, but from a customer acquisition perspective, it was very challenging.

www.codecombat.com had some organic acquisition channels that worked well, but they proved to be mostly non-repeatable.

I'm now working on my third company (also an AI B2C SaaS play), but I started first and foremost by identifying a viable discovery channel / product pair. In this case, I found that paid advertising in the elder care space converts well.

To put it more bluntly, a product without a customer acquisition channel is closer to a hobby than a business. A product with an acquisition channel that is somewhat scaleable and repeatable is likely to be a profitable business. A product with high growth / viral acquisition channel is a startup.

I'm not knocking operating a hobby product. I've done that and there are good and bad parts to the experience. But if you want to grow, you shouldn't be asking the question "how do I grow this product?" you should instead be asking "what product could I build that has a demonstrable acquisition channel?"

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1. osigurdson ◴[] No.43976153[source]
Can this be put more simply as "build something that people want"? I'm not sure what a "demonstrable acquisition channel" is (ChatGPT suggests it is ads, social media, etc). Honest question, not criticizing the comment - just looking for more clarification.
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2. gsaines ◴[] No.43976766[source]
It's more than just building something people want.

I want a lot of things and would be willing to pay for some of them, but unless there is a way to reach me, it doesn't matter.

There is this cultural meme that if an amazing product simply exists, then people will tell other people and it'll grow organically. The reality is that amazing, ahead-of-their time products and services are constantly being created and dying. Not because they don't solve a need, but because they weren't able to reach customers economically with the right message.

That ability to reach customers and contextualize the solution in language that matches their expectation is actually a lot rarer than building a good product.