First 100 customers - this is how to get them
Early-stage startups are a hustle.
Instead of relying on scalable growth strategies on your first day, successful founders focus on doing things that don’t scale. Airbnb’s founders manually recruited their first hosts by meeting them in person and taking photos of their properties. And so should you!
Here are my personal tips on how to get your first 100 customers, based on what helped at my startups
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Founder = Sales Rep
As a founder, you are your startup’s first and best salesperson. Outsourcing sales too early is a common mistake. Most successful startups had founder-led sales until they reached at least $1M ARR.
Why?
1. No one knows the product like you: You’ve built the solution and understand the pain points it solves.
2. Iterate faster: Every conversation with a potential customer helps refine your pitch, pricing, and product. You need direct feedback.
3. Establish a sales culture: Your team learns from you. Leading sales early sets the standard for customer engagement.
How to get your first 100 customers
Cold Emails/Calls
Cold outreach is still one of the most effective ways to land your first customers. It’s direct, measurable, and scalable.
Build a targeted list: Use tools like Apollo.io or Hunter.io to find email addresses and LinkedIn profiles of your ideal customers.
Craft simple emails: Write short, personalized emails that highlight how your product solves their pain points. Do NOT send mass emails without personalization. It hurts your brand.
Follow up: Don’t expect conversions from one email, most deals happen after 3–5 follow-ups. Make them creative.
Cold mailing is a technological alchemy. With AI and many CRM tools out there, there’s a lot of spam going to people’s inboxes. This is a great article going deep into the cold outbound strategy.
Social media
For B2B startups, LinkedIn is a goldmine. You can find decision-makers, showcase your expertise, and build trust with your audience.
Thanks to LinkedIn and being active every week, I’ve built amazing connections, partnerships, and attended many unexpected events.
Grow your network: Connect with people in your target market or industry.
Share value-added content: Post about industry trends, behind the scenes of your company, celebrate successful case studies but also share what’s not going that well and ask for help.
Engage with other’s content: Comment on posts, but like a human - don’t use jargon, AI generated content without personalizing or just bland sentences like “great insights”. Ask real questions, don’t be cringey.
Social media isn’t a direct sales channel, but it builds credibility and helps in the long run.
Events and conferences
While not effective for most startups, attending industry events can be useful in certain industries. It definitely helped me to enter the travel space, which is driven by personal connections.
Events helped build my company’s credibility early on, including lots of free PR.
I made connections that led to referrals, warm intros and sales.
If you decide to invest time in events, ensure you’re targeting the right audience and have a clear objective (e.g., generating leads, networking with decision-makers).
I never paid for any conference, article or award and neither should you - many big companies and conferences support startups for free.
What does NOT work
SEO, Ads, and SEM - These strategies are better suited for scaling from 100 to 1 000 customers, when you have more resources, time and data to optimize campaigns.
Free product - inviting people or friends to get your product for free does not work. To get proper feedback, the customer needs to pay. And as an early stage startup, nothing is more important than validating if people are truly willing to pay for your product.
Outsourcing sales - lead-gen agencies, hiring junior sales reps,… it does not work. 70% of founder’s time before hitting Product Market Fit must be committed to sales. Get used to it, find a way to learn it and like it. Learning how to sell is the most important skill of any entrepreneur.
What helped you acquire your first 100 customers? Share in the comments.
This was the last piece of my “starting startups” mini-series:
✅ How to choose get & validate the right idea
✅ How to set up your business and where
✅ Techniques to get your first 100 customers
Curious to read my next post?
See you soon!
Kristina
🔗 Connect with me on LinkedIn - Kristina Melsova.
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