Picture this: you just shipped your SaaS after weeks of building, and now you’re staring at a landing page with exactly zero visitors. That’s the moment most builders panic and start throwing spaghetti at every growth tactic they’ve ever heard of. A founder who’s built six SaaS products (the current one sitting around $10k MRR) posted the exact playbook they use to cross the first 50-user mark, no fluff, no theory, just the moves in order. 🚀
Why This Matters
“How do I get my first users” is the most-asked question in builder communities, and most answers are vague pep talks about “providing value.” This one isn’t. It’s a sequence: validate, build, capture, distribute, repeat. If you’re sitting on a finished product and zero traction, the gap usually isn’t the code. It’s that nobody’s doing steps 7 through 16 below. Most builders get stuck because they treat distribution as an afterthought, something you figure out after the product is “done.” This founder treats it as half the build, baked in from day one.
📋 The How-To Steps
Foundation first:
- Find an idea people already pay for. Scan Reddit for the same pain showing up across 3+ posts asking “is there a tool for X.” Bonus points if people are already linking to a spreadsheet or Zapier hack they cobbled together, that’s a sign they’d happily pay for something cleaner.
- Validate before writing code. DM three people who complained and ask what they’d actually pay for a fix. If nobody gives you a number, that’s your answer too.
- Build fast with AI + no-code. AI builder plus Supabase, Stripe, and something like n8n gets a real MVP live in under 7 days for about $40/month. Skip the custom auth flow and the fancy onboarding animation, ship the core loop and nothing else.
Get the page working:
- The 5-second landing page rule. Your hero section has to say what the tool does in under 5 seconds, with one clear CTA. If a stranger has to scroll to understand what you sell, rewrite the headline.
- Capture emails before showing prices. Force email capture ahead of the pricing page so no lead slips away untracked. Even a “not ready yet” visitor becomes a name you can nurture later.
- Run a 30-day nurture sequence. Feed captured emails into automated case-study emails aimed at converting by day 18. Real screenshots of the tool solving the exact pain point beat generic feature lists every time.
Then go where the buyers are:
- Hang out where your ICP actually lives. Find the 3-5 specific subreddits, Discords, or groups where they talk shop.
- Reddit growth without the ban. One post per sub per week, max. No links in the post. Move warm replies to DMs.
- Run the LinkedIn + X flywheel. One high-value breakdown a day, plus 15 minutes engaging in your ICP’s comments.
- Cold outreach that works. 100 personalized DMs a week, using AI to customize the opening line for each person.
- Put SEO on autopilot. An n8n workflow pulling from a keyword list to generate 5-10 value articles a week.
- Go faceless on short-form. One video a day on TikTok, Reels, and Shorts, just a quick screen recording of the tool in action.
- Run a weekly newsletter. One section of pure value, one subtle nudge toward the paid upgrade.
- Launch an affiliate program. 50% recurring commission turns your power users into an unpaid sales team.
- Time the Product Hunt launch. Warm up the algorithm for 4 weeks with a coming-soon page, then launch on a weekend.
- Automate omnichannel posting. Use n8n to reformat one core idea across 8 platforms instead of writing eight times.
Close the loop:
- Submit to directories. 40+ SaaS and AI-wrapper directories for a quick domain authority bump.
- Run the numbers backwards. Reverse-engineer the daily traffic needed for 50 paying users at $19/month and a 2% conversion rate. If the math says you need 500 visitors a week and you’re getting 40, that gap tells you exactly where to spend your next two weeks.
- Talk to founders a few steps ahead. People just 6 months further along compress your timeline more than any tactic on this list. They’ve already made the mistakes you’re about to make, and most are happy to save you the pain over a 20-minute call.
💡 Tips & Tricks
One commenter pushed back on step 10, and it’s worth hearing. They burned goodwill early on by sending automated LinkedIn messages that looked identical to everyone else’s. The fix isn’t skipping cold outreach, it’s making the personalization actually personal, not just a mail-merge with a first name swapped in. Reference something specific from their profile or a post they wrote, and the reply rate jumps noticeably. A second commenter just wrote “spam,” which is a fair reminder that self-promo threads always draw both camps. Read a post like this for the sequence, not as gospel on tone, and adapt the pacing to your own audience before copying it wholesale.
🎯 Your Move
You don’t need all 19 running Monday morning. Pick the three you’re not doing yet, ideally validation, the email-capture gate, and one distribution channel, and run those for two weeks before adding more. The full discussion has more back-and-forth in the comments worth a look. Which step are you actually missing?
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: How do I make my cold outreach messages convert better?
Focus on the specific problem you solve, not the tool itself. Generic automated messages that look like every other SaaS pitch get ignored. Instead, personalize by referencing a real pain point they’ve mentioned, then explain how you eliminate that burden. When you lead with "problem solved" instead of "tool features," conversion rates improve dramatically.
Q: What’s the biggest mistake in cold outreach messaging?
Leading with your tool instead of their problem. People don’t want another login; they want a specific burden removed from their desk. If your message forces them to figure out how your tool helps, they’ll ignore it. Make it crystal clear upfront that you understand their exact bottleneck and can remove it.
how to get your first 50 SaaS users. here is my exact playbook.
by u/Wide-Tap-8886 in PromptEngineering