Many billion and million-dollar companies did not start out with huge budgets, they often bootstrapped to get their first users. This page contains insights on how 30+ well-known companies got their first users.
Hey Producthunt!
@leonpals - thank you so much for hunting!
Startup First Users is a collection of stories about billion & million-dollar companies, focused on how they got their very first users from scratch.
Though they may have millions and billions in revenue today, most companies started out with a limited budget.
I've been fascinated about the early stories of successful companies for a long time, reading books and blog, listening to podcasts, and reaching out to companies about how they got their first users.
So, here it is. A collection of 30+ successful companies. I decided to launch this as part of my future free email course on early user growth at https://earlyusergrowth.com, as I believe the obstacles of not being able to find your first users can be fixed by understanding how other companies have done it.
Thanks to everybody who has helped me out so far!
If you have any questions, feel free to drop them down below.
@leonpals@fheijdenrijk We struggled with this early on as a B2B SaaS company, so we launched Paid http://bit.ly/2LmCgDQ. Paid helps SaaS companies get their first 100 paid πΈusers and compensates early adopters for their time. Check it out and let me know if you have any questions!
I love this kind of content, but I wouldn't bother going in and read this. I would, however read it piece by piece if I would get one example per day/week as an email. Any change you could do that? π π
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This is amazing! Iβd also love to see at what point did they start to feel the tipping effect / Product - market fit i.e. was it at first 100, 1000 or 10,000 users?
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It is unclear whether you get the stories right away on the onboarding email, or if it's after you give your email to start with? Sounds great but as a UX it has a long way to go in communicating exactly what the product is (or will be) and what I as a customer am expected to do
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Just noticed that the product itself is not the website itself but a landing page. I'm still kinda confused as to what the company does but at least I can read the mentioned stories =D
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@fheijdenrijk, loved the product - Startup First Users, especially stories in quick read format. It is not surprising that most of the tech companies acquired their first users via word-of-mouth, given the quick and trusted feedback that is received from this medium. Curious to understand your take on content packaging products. How do you differentiate your product from other similar products in the market?
Great stuff Frank!
Have just been reading through and honestly a great resource.
People fall into the trap of copying big companies now. But that only makes sense if you also a big company.
If you're just starting out you'll learn far more by copying the techniques these companies used to get started in the first place.
Something I will keep coming back to for inspiration for sure.
Startup First User is an overview of how famous startups got their early adopters through the door and how they went from the startup to scale-up phase. It's filled with (in)famous launching strategies and companies that unlocked new engines of growth. A lot of these are from before there was such a term as 'growth hacking'.
Enjoy and give Frank your thoughts, I know he worked hard on it.
Startup First Users
SeekWell
Shift
Marketing Examples
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Startup First Users