Magic Hour
AI · first 100 paid users
The founders posted about four AI-generated videos a day across social platforms to fill a waitlist of 600. Only 20 converted at launch, and reaching 100 paid users took eight months.
Reported: 1,000+ short videos at 4 a day; 600 waitlist signups; 20 converted; 100 paid users after 8 months
“By June 2023, when we finally launched, 600 people had signed up for the waitlist.”
Social media, A waitlist
magichour.ai, Runbo Li, January 2025
Slay.so
SaaS · first 100 to 200 customers
After the first customers came from his network, he hosted regular Clubhouse rooms and launched a 25% affiliate program. That grew the base to 100 to 200 customers in a couple of months.
Reported: 2 to 3 Clubhouse rooms a week; 25% affiliate commission; 100 to 200 customers within a couple of months
“Within a couple of months, this grew our customer base between 100–200 customers.”
Word of mouth, Social media, Partnerships
indiehackers.com, Matthew Pierce, September 2023
Plausible Analytics
SaaS · first paying customers
The founders built in public with updates on Indie Hackers, their blog and Twitter, which brought all early users and 60 active beta users by the paid launch. Blog posts reaching the Hacker News front page then drove the traffic spikes.
Reported: 60 active beta users and $64 MRR in the first paid month; 2,500 visitors in a day from a blog post on Hacker News; later 25,000+ in a day
“We had 60 active beta users at this point, and some decided to stick around and pay for our service too.”
Communities, Content marketing, Social media
plausible.io, Marko Saric, June 2022
Test-Driven APIs with Laravel and Pest
Info product · first $2,000 in sales
He wrote technical threads and gave away a sample chapter to collect emails before launching a book to a small Twitter audience. The launch sold 231 copies for $2,373.
Reported: About 1,900 Twitter followers and 83 email subscribers; 231 sales; $2,373; 16% email conversion
“My launch e-mails had a 16% conversion rate.”
Social media, Content marketing
martinjoo.dev, Martin Joo, March 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
Glint (Ensomniac Studios)
Mobile app · first 1,000 downloads
The studio built a social following before launch and pitched app review sites. Reviews in AppAdvice, Pocket Gamer and App Spy drove most of the 1,000+ launch-day downloads.
Reported: About 5,000 Facebook fans and 3,000 Twitter followers before launch; 1,000+ launch-day downloads; 300 a day afterwards
“The reviews the studio scored in AppAdvice, Pocket Gamer and App Spy contributed to the vast majority of its downloads”
Press, Social media, Communities
indiegamegirl.com, Ryan Martin, March 2014
The App Design Handbook
Info product · first $1,000 in sales
He built a 795-person email list from blog posts and Twitter during the three months he spent writing the book. Emailing that list on launch day brought in $1,000 in ten minutes.
Reported: 795-person prelaunch list; $1,000 in 10 minutes; $6,469.90 on launch day; about 600 visits from Hacker News
“I’ve been working on it for 3 months and had built up a pre-launch list of 795 people.”
A waitlist, Content marketing, Social media, Launch platforms
Hacker News
nathanbarry.com, Nathan Barry, September 2012
Buffer
SaaS · first paying customer
He tweeted a landing page to test demand, then added a fake pricing page to test willingness to pay before building. The rough first version got a paying customer within four days.
Reported: First paying customer 4 days after launch; 500 users; about 4% upgraded to paid
“I had my first paying customer within 4 days of launching the “rough around the edges” product.”
A waitlist, Social media, Launch platforms
buffer.com, Joel Gascoigne, February 2011
Autoklose
SaaS · first customers
He spent months before launch sending 100 LinkedIn requests a day and lining up sales influencers to promote the product. By launch day he had 2,400 people on the list and nearly 1,000 demos booked.
Reported: 2,400 on the waitlist; nearly 1,000 demos booked by launch day; 15+ influencers with about 500,000 combined reach; 100 LinkedIn connection requests a day
“By launch day, he had 2,400 people on his list and nearly 1,000 demos booked.”
A waitlist, Partnerships, Social media
saasclub.io, Shawn Finder
Glamnetic
E-commerce · first sales
She turned an existing beauty meme account into the brand account and messaged every new follower with a personal discount code. DMs alone sold through the first inventory batch before Facebook ads took over.
Reported: First order of 100 lashes at about $3 each; up to 8 hours a day of Instagram DMs; passed a $10K first-month goal
“First sales came entirely from Ann personally DMing every new Instagram follower with a custom Shopify discount code, up to 8 hours a day.”
Social media
mywifequitherjob.com, Ann McFerran
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
Programmatic SEO course
Info product · first $1,000 in sales
He presold an online course to his newsletter and Twitter audience before building it, and a Webflow feature helped spread it. Pre-orders passed $1,000 within six hours.
Reported: 53 pre-orders and $1,073 in 6 hours; $6,622 in 5 days
“53 pre-orders, $1073 sales in 6 hours”
Content marketing, Partnerships, Social media
preetamnath.com, Preetam Nath
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