As a founder, you dedicate time, money, and heart to creating creative products that solve real-world problems. Your product innovates. Early feedback is positive, and everyone you talk to believes there’s a strong market demand.

Then, a problem arises. Why are you having trouble selling a few months after entering the market?

CB Insights found that 42% of startups fail because their product is unneeded. The product may not be unacceptable, but they didn’t reach the right individuals with the proper message.

Not all great products sell themselves. If you believe it, your “non-marketing strategy” will fail you and your amazing product.

Great products still require effective marketing and sales efforts to find their audience and drive sales.

In this article, we will cover how successful founders actually get those first 100 customers. Let’s dig in!

Know Exactly Who You’re Building For

Getting your first 100 customers is a dynamic process that will feel and look different from subsequent business stages.

You may strategically market to your first 100 customers by communicating with real people in several ways. Founders rarely consider designing software this way, but those who do understand their products, customers, and businesses better.

Your first 100 customers will help you to verify your business idea, adore your product/solution, and become enthusiastic brand ambassadors. Find them on LinkedIn, Slack, Reddit, and niche events. Provide value, create trust, and have a conversation with them so you can fulfill their needs with your product.

Practice Zero Marketing

Many companies make the mistake of trying to jump from zero to 100 customers as quickly as possible. They often invest a significant amount of money in paid acquisition, lacking a clear understanding of their potential customers and their needs.

Early on, you want to avoid throwing money at the customer acquisition challenge. Spending a lot of cash on Google or Facebook Ads might net your business a number of new customers early on, but they won’t always be the kind of customers that will stick around.

Instead, focus on low-cost forms of marketing, like building a word-of-mouth campaign or giving potential users free resources and tools. Figure out what works. Then do more of it.

These tactics are fundamental steps to craft your GTM strategy without breaking the bank.

Here are some examples of how companies use zero marketing to reach 100 customers:

• Airbnb started by renting out spare air mattresses in the CEO’s flat, which required patience for word-of-mouth. Airbnb successfully recruited a significant number of hosts from Craigslist through individual text messages.
• FounderKit recruited its first 100 members by contacting the Y Combinator founders list. FounderKit emailed all YC founders with their dependable product review prototype.

Speak with Each and Every Customer

Let’s say your zero marketing worked. Marketing is still challenging when you see an empty Google Analytics Dashboard every day. Early on, you may just get a few website views a day, so analytics can’t provide marketing insights.

At this time, founders should reach deep, not wide. It is beneficial to have only 10 customers. Call them to discover everything your customers needed the most from your product. Your understanding of their needs will help you engage with ten clients and achieve a sales target of 100 or more.

As you visit and call customers, you demonstrate concern for their issues. You’ll reach more people more effectively by collecting real-time input on what they care about. You’re positioning yourself for success.

Several successful companies talked to early customers, for example:

• Tinder utilized college ecosystems. One of its co-founders persuaded her college chapters nationwide to immediately download Tinder. She then went to the fraternities and showed them how many college girls were on the app, giving Tinder a better idea of how people used their product.
• Belly conducted in-person and phone conversations with hundreds of small company owners in Chicago before developing their initial product. Although challenging, the customer interviews enabled Belly to identify genuine customer issues. The result? They added 500 local companies to their customer loyalty platform.
• Slack conducted customer research by beta-testing their product on a small sample of 6–10 users and conducting interviews to understand their usage of the new product. They used those lessons to onboard the following wave of users, and then another. Speaking to customers helped Slack refine its marketing and messaging around genuine customer behavior.

Identify Which Clients Are Your Most Successful

Finding customers who can succeed with your product is crucial. Early identification of high-value, high-LTV customers can assist you in selling to them as you grow.

Find your top customers early and grow around them. Avoid wasting time on non-ideal customers who drain your staff.

Focus on these questions to get there:

• How many customers are in your space or vertical?
• Can you reach how many customers?
• Can they embrace your product with a free trial?
• Do they have a budget and funds to purchase your product?

These companies discovered and learned from early customer success:

• Yelp initially struggled to receive consistent, intelligent reviews. More reviews provide more value to Yelp users and strengthen social interaction. Yelp Elite, an incentive program, promotes top users to post more. These successful users motivated other users to engage.
• ConvertKit, an email marketing firm for bloggers, gained 50 customers by writing about The Web App Challenge. Since bloggers had the same problem with other newsletter services, they immediately focused on bloggers rather than anyone who needed email marketing. Many blogs wanted something simpler than MailChimp.
• KISSmetrics initially assumed users knew their measurement goals and methods. So we offered customization. However, many of our initial users didn’t need our product and didn’t want to pay for it. Instead, we focused on our best customers—internet marketers.

The First 100 Is a Test, Not a Goal

Getting your first 100 customers is challenging. Time is a startup’s most valuable resource. However, early customer investment always pays off. You learn who your primary customers are and what they look and desire from your product. Additionally, these approaches will demonstrate how much you care about them.

Visit offices, make calls, take on support, ask questions; anything to get closer to your clients helps you grasp their requirements and issues. This gives you knowledge to scale your business, both on your marketing and product.