PostHog
Developer tool · first 1,000 users
They got the first 10 users from personal networks, then posted on Hacker News, which produced 300 deployments within days. A small paid Twitter push and steady community work took them to 1,000 users.
Reported: 10 users from personal networks; a couple dozen from outreach; 300 deployments within days of a Hacker News post; about $2,000 on Twitter promotion; 1,000 users by May 2020
“We reached 300 deployments within a couple of days – five weeks after we started building.”
Word of mouth, Cold outreach, Launch platforms, Paid ads
Hacker News
posthog.com, James Hawkins, June 2024
Proxycurl
Developer tool · first 100 customers
Cold email landed the first 10 paying customers of this data API. SEO content then became the main source for the next 90 and beyond.
Reported: First 10 from cold email; SEO drove 30% to 50% of customers 11 to 100; later about 70% inbound from SEO
“Cold email outreach got our first 10 paying customers.”
Cold outreach, SEO
indiehackers.com, Steven Goh, September 2023
Retool
Developer tool · first 40 customers
The founders first pitched people they knew in person, then switched to outbound emails, which took them to roughly 40 customers. They reached seven figures of ARR before ever launching publicly.
Reported: 3 to 5 customers from in-person outreach, then about 40 customers and $1M to $2M ARR before the Hacker News launch
“the path we took to find more customers was, uh, outbound emails. Uh, and that probably took us from maybe to 20 to 30 to 40 customers.”
Cold outreach
review.firstround.com, David Hsu, November 2022
Supademo
SaaS · first 10 paying customers
He launched an interactive demo tool on Hacker News and Reddit, then personally followed up with every user and shipped their feedback fast. That produced 340 signups and 10 paying customers.
Reported: 340 signups; 10 paying customers; 70 upvotes on Hacker News; 70 upvotes on r/SideProject
“The users who saw me implementing their feedback trusted me and became my first paid customers.”
Launch platforms, Communities, Word of mouth, Cold outreach
Hacker News
news.ycombinator.com, Koushik, November 2022
Tally
SaaS · first 1,500 users
The founders built lists of hundreds of prospects from Product Hunt and Twitter and cold-emailed them asking for feedback, and shared progress publicly. A Product Hunt launch later doubled the user base.
Reported: 184 users and $64 MRR by October 2020; about 1,500 users before Product Hunt; doubled to about 3,000 after
“We scanned Product Hunt and Twitter and made lists of hundreds of prospects and started doing cold outreach, asking for their feedback.”
Cold outreach, Communities, Launch platforms, Social media
Product Hunt
blog.tally.so, Marie Martens, October 2021
FluidBot
AI · first 1,000 users
The founder of an AI investing chatbot skipped big subreddits and posted in small subreddits, mid-sized Discords and Facebook investing groups, plus direct messages. This reached 1,000 users in a month without spending money.
Reported: 1,000 users in a month on a $0 budget; subreddits under 10,000 members; Discords around 5,000 members
“For me, it was small subreddits (<10,000 members), medium sized discords (~5,000 users), and Facebook investing groups.”
Cold outreach, Communities
reddit.com
Jeeva.ai
AI · first 100 paying customers
The founder sent hundreds of manual messages offering demos, ran outbound with an 11% reply rate and wrote a LinkedIn post that converted 30 paying customers. Referrals added 18 more on the way to 100 in four months.
Reported: 100 customers in 4 months; 11% reply rate on outreach; one LinkedIn post led to 30 paying; 18 from referrals
“I manually messaged hundreds of individuals offering demos. This landed our next 10 customers.”
Cold outreach, Communities, Social media, Partnerships
mucker.com, Gaurav Bhattacharya
SendOwl
SaaS · first 2 paying customers
After validating demand with a $100 AdWords test, he searched Twitter daily for people struggling to sell digital products and replied to them. A month of this produced two paying customers.
Reported: $100 AdWords validation test; 1 to 2 tweets a day for a month; 2 customers on the $9 and $15 plans
“After a month of this, he had two paying customers - one on the $9 plan and one on the $15 plan.”
Social media, Cold outreach
saasclub.io, George Palmer
Uplane
AI · first clients
The founders sent cold LinkedIn messages asking to learn about a problem, held question-only discovery calls and came back a week later with a working solution. This sold the product before it was built and reached $1M ARR in about six months.
Reported: $1M ARR in about 6 months
“So we did the normal LinkedIn outreach discovery call strategy to win our very first clients here.”
Cold outreach
saasclub.io, Julius Körfgen
Gusto
SaaS · first customers
The founders asked every small business they dealt with in daily life, like their kids' swim class and a flower shop, who ran their payroll. They signed up the ones who had no provider.
“We had a flower shop where Eddie was buying flowers, and he asked her, ‘Who do you use for payroll?’”
Cold outreach
review.firstround.com, Tomer London, January 2026