What actually got your first 10 paying customers?
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Not the playbook version, the real one.
I'm a solo maker with a day job and no audience, and I'm finding that most launch advice assumes you already have one. So I'm curious what genuinely worked for people starting from zero.
Was it a single post that took off? Emailing people one by one? A niche forum? Friends of friends? Something that felt too small to matter at the time?
I'll share what I learn back in the thread. Especially keen to hear from anyone who sells a small paid app or tool.
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The real version for my small paid app: the first payers came from App Store search, organically, not from ads. It helped that the new app took over the store page of an older app of mine, so it did not start from zero. One honest failure that may save you money: I ran social ads to a web checkout, about $190, around 230 people opened the payment form, and nobody paid. They were inside the social apps' own browsers, with no saved wallet and some cards refused, so the checkout itself was the wall. Now those visitors get their song free in the app instead, and the app store handles the payment. If you sell a small tool, put the payment where people already have a card saved.
Lee, mine came from events and one to one chats on linkedin, not the website. thousands of visitors to the site turned into a couple of signups, pretty much everyone else who pays was someone I'd met or talked to first. with no audience I'd pick the one niche where your users already hang out and talk to people there one at a time. feels too small to matter but it's what actually worked for me. what's the app?
one thing I should've added: the biggest lift for us came from going after competitors' audiences. people liking or commenting on a competitor's linkedin posts are already looking for something like yours, so they're way warmer than any cold list. for your niche I'd pick the 2 or 3 apps people compare you to, go through their last few posts and message the commenters about what they actually said, not a pitch.