How to find your first 10 SaaS customers
Your first customers do not come from a launch day. They come from conversations with people who already have the problem. Here is a plan you can run in a few weeks.
1. Write down the exact problem, in the buyer’s words
Before you look for anyone, write one sentence a frustrated buyer would say. Not “AI-powered workflow automation” but “I waste every Monday copying invoices into a spreadsheet”. That sentence becomes your search query, your reply opener and your homepage headline. If you cannot write it, you are not ready to look for customers yet.
2. List where those people already ask for help
For most SaaS products the public places are:
- Subreddits for the role or industry, not for startups
- Hacker News “Ask HN” threads, for developer and technical tools
- Stack Exchange sites and GitHub Issues, where people hit the limits of existing tools
- Bluesky and X, where people ask their followers for recommendations
- Industry Slack and Discord groups, which are private and need joining and reading by hand
3. Search daily for intent, not mentions
Mentions of your category are mostly noise: news, launches, hiring posts. You want posts where someone is asking. Phrases like “anyone recommend”, “alternative to”, “looking for a tool that” and “how do you handle” filter out most of the noise. Ten minutes a day on new posts beats a weekend of browsing.
4. Reply like a person, then follow the conversation
Answer their question properly first. Mention your product once, say it is yours, and offer to set it up for them. Your first ten customers are usually people you talked to directly, so treat every reply as the start of a conversation, not a sales pitch. If they try it, ask what nearly stopped them from signing up.
5. Do things that do not scale
Offer to import their data, jump on a short call, or build the one missing feature. Early on, the goal is learning why someone pays, not efficiency. Write down every objection. Those become your FAQ and your next homepage rewrite.
6. Track what converts
Keep a simple list: where the post was, what they asked, what you replied, and whether they signed up. After twenty or thirty replies you will see which places and which phrasings bring customers, and you can drop the rest.
Where LaunchRadar fits
Steps 2 and 3 are the tedious part. LaunchRadar reads your website, writes the buyer-style searches, checks Reddit, Hacker News, Bluesky, X, Stack Exchange and GitHub Issues, and emails you the posts that look like someone asking for a product like yours, each with a score and a reason. It does not post for you. Paste your URL below for a free sample.
See also finding your first users in existing conversations and how to find customers on Reddit.
Common questions
How long does it take to get the first 10 SaaS customers?
It varies widely by product and price. Founders who reply to people already asking for a solution usually start conversations within days, but turning those into paying customers depends on how well the product solves the problem.
Should I launch on Product Hunt first?
A launch can bring a spike of visitors, but many are other founders rather than buyers. Conversations with people who already have the problem tend to produce your first paying customers more reliably.
Is cold email a good way to find first customers?
It can work, but it is a cold start. Replying to someone who publicly asked for help is warmer, because they have already said they want a solution.