Sam Altman walks through four common strategies
to get your fist 100 users in order of best to
worst:
1. Use your network. Email everyone you know and call in favors
from anyone you can think of. But if it’s a paid
product, make sure you charge them. “People who
are inclined to do you favors are going to be
too nice in what they tell you. So if it’s a
paid product, charge them.”
2. Research people who might use your product and
email them asking them to try it. “Conversion rates are low—maybe 2-3%—so
you’ll have to reach out to more people. But you
can send targeted emails saying ‘Hey, I just
made this new product. I’d really appreciate if
you would try it out.’ Most people want to be
helpful.”
3. Social media outreach, posting to HN, forums,
PR, etc. “The important thing to look for here is a
traffic source that is sustainable rather than
one big pop that then promptly goes away.”
Airbnb is an example of a company that made PR
work as an ongoing process—they were able to
come up with press stunt after press stunt. But
it’s hard.
4. Buy ads and point them at your website. “This is the ‘laziest’ and least impressive
thing you can do… This is not what I’d
recommend. I don’t know of any startup that has
gotten big starting this way. I include it
because it’s the idea that most people
try.”
This may sound basic, but I think this advice
is important. Getting your first 100 users is
mostly hard work. As Sam puts it:
“Everyone thinks they’re going to put up this
website, tell one person about it, and it’s
going to take off like wildfire. But that’s not
what usually happens.”
