One thing I underestimated when building my first product:
Getting the first 100 users is usually very manual.
Not growth hacks.
Not funnels.
Not paid ads.
More like:
- replying to people in Reddit threads
- answering questions on Quora
- DMing potential users one by one
- hanging around competitor communities
- building tiny free tools/templates people naturally share
In the beginning, you don’t need a scalable system.
You need conversations.
Most early-stage founders are trying to scale before they’ve even confirmed people truly care.
The first 100 users are often “hand-collected.”
And honestly, that process teaches you more than any analytics dashboard.
u/Cute_Switch3394 — 26 days ago