How to Find the First 100 Paid Clients for Your Startup: 45 Growth Ideas I Gathered

These are from my indie maker career: 7 years of actually making a SaaS from $0 to $16,000 MMR and observing others.

Enjoy!

Idea #1

This is one stupidly simple, but unobvious. It brought me the first 5 paid users in 2018: find people in your contact list who could be your customers.

Ex-colleagues, partners, freelance clients, bosses. Sell them your product.

The most loyal people are the easiest to sell to.

Idea #2

Make a waitlist from day 0. While you are preparing your app, testing it, and approaching potential clients, your list grows.

For example, my new SaaS, logbeat.com, was announced 6 months ago. I started gathering emails then. Now, I have a list of the first ~100 potential clients.

Idea #3

Make a side-project! 🙂

Side projects are fun and easy to create.

One free site I made to promote my SaaS (uigenerator.org) brought in a total of ~100 paid clients = ~$20k profit over 4 years.

I should have created one each month! 😭😭😭

More side project ideas: x.com/alexanderisora…

Idea #4

Be active on 𝕏.

Just come up every day and write about what you did or learned.

Your goal is to master your writing and storytelling skills.

Aim to make a post that you yourself truly enjoy reading.

Idea #5

After you are good at writing, aim to make a viral post (100k+ views).

Your goal now is to upgrade from a good writer into a great one.

Idea #6

Repurpose your best tweet into a YouTube video.

Example: Slidebean makes videos to promote their presentation SaaS.

Idea #7

Make a list of competitors. Check their products, messages, offers, and landing pages.

Check their company/founder 𝕏 accounts.

Research the accounts of the people that follow them.

You will get MASSIVE insights.

Idea #8

Build a "useless but fun" micro-tool.

Those easily go viral on social networks.

Idea #9

DM the users of the competitor's apps. Choose the people who actually complained or asked for smth.

E.g., if I want to promote my side-project makeimagetransparent.com, I go to all comments complaining about Figma not having this feature and offer them my tool.

Idea #10

Launch your startup on Product Hunt.

It won't be as well as it was in 2019 (isora.me/product-hunt-l…).

Also, you won't get significant traffic without an army of fans.

But it is still worth launching.

In the worst scenario, you will get a cool backlink.

Idea #11

Launch the project on all startup alternatives: Devhunt.org, Uneed.best, etc.

You can find the list of all PH clients here: startupswiki.org/books/places-t…

Not much traffic, but you still have some chances to find a client there.

Idea #12

Besides launchpads, post your startup on all directories. You can google them with "list of startups" or just use John Rush's Listingbott to save time.

Idea #13

Make a directory.

Idea #14

Make a community! 😁

If your startup is an email service, make a community of people working with emails.

Example: my Telegram group of indie makers: isora.me/solo-founders-… I made it to promote my site builder. Got some clients from it.

Tools: Discord, Telegram, FB, 𝕏

Idea #15

Write a book.

It does not have to be an academic 700-page read. Just make a 40-page brochure and call it "a book." 😁

If you are not an expert at anything, do a lot of research and write a book based on your findings.

Just don't ask Grok to "write a book"! It won't work!

Idea #16

Make a free list of influencers/bloggers in your industry.

Share it on 𝚁𝚎𝚍𝚍𝚒𝚝.

Add this line: "I did this list to promote my startup <site>, but I thought it may be useful for others too."

Idea #17

Do SEO.

Yes, SEO can be quick: https://x.com/johnrushx/status/1724564921977885060

Idea #18

Write the story of how and why you started your project.

Make it a real good one.

Pay x2 attention to the "why" part.

Share it on hackernews, starterstory, r/bootstrappedSaaS, r/sideproject.

Idea #19

Cold DMs. They work if cooked properly:

• find potential clients
• read what they work on (spend at least 10 minutes)
• ask a genuine question about their work and the problems they have
• offer the solution

Do not automate it. Do not use templates. Do not do mass DMs (5 DMs/day).

Idea #20

Become ultra-active on Product Hunt.

PH is full of your potential clients.

If you write meaningful (I said MEANINGFUL 😁) comments there, you will get free a constant attention to your project.

Idea #21

Make a promo video and publish it on YouTube.

Get views from their search. Not huge but something.

Tools: use my app paracast.io or hire a freelancer.

Idea #22

Piggyback on big platform launches.

When a big platform (e.g., OpenAI) drops an update, instantly build a demo using it + your product.

Example: John Rush made a directory of custom GPTs using his directory builder https://x.com/johnrushx/status/1732820070638690312

Idea #23

Make a new forum! Yes, old-fashioned online website with threads and comments. Some people prefer that way rather than chatting on 𝕏.

Forums also have huge SEO potential.

Example: broadwise.org

Tools: Discourse

Idea #24

Create an ULTRA-minimalistic micro tool.

Those get viral on 𝙧𝙚𝙙𝙙𝙞𝙩 and hackernews.

Put your ad there later, after it gets trending.

Example: uploadfile.click — dead simple no-sign up Dropbox alternative.

Idea #25

Run a tiny LTD campaign.

Aim for 20-50 purchases. Do it for the sake of getting your initial community built up, not for the sake of money.

Here is my story of raising $10k with LTD: isora.me/i-raised-10k-f…

Idea #26

Find all competitors in your niche. Compare them with each other and make a post.

You must really use each of the tools and deeply understand their strong/weak points!

Publish it on hackernews, /r/saas, r/bootstrappedSaaS, r/sideproject

Idea #27

Collect great examples of what your product does.

E.g. if you are building a promo video generator (like paracast.io 😎), find the 20 most beautiful promo videos of SaaS/apps. Make a collection. Share it.

Idea #28

Start a niched-down media.

E.g. if you are selling a SaaS boilerplate, make an 𝕏 account that posts SaaS ideas (smth like @micro_startups_). The readers will take the ideas and create SaaS using your boilerplate.

Idea #29

Browse 𝕏/r͎e͎d͎d͎i͎t͎, and find the discussions of your potential clients.

Make a useful comment manually. Invest >1 hour in it. A good one will stay there for 3-5 years and become your free traffic source.

If it is bad, no one will upvote it, and you will have 0 clicks.

Idea #30

Create a niched-down Wikipedia.

Yeah, like the big one, but just for the small topic of your niche.

Example: https://startupswiki.org/

Tool: BookStack (don't use docuwiki: it's too old)

Idea #31

Start a podcast!

Example: x.com/alexanderisora…

P.S. If you start one, let me know. I will add it to my list startupideaspodcast.com

Idea #32

Make your users promote your startup. Add something shareable to your product.

Here is a great example by Intercom: (1-minute read).intercom.com/blog/shareable…

Idea #33

Make a reply under someone's else viral tweet. It takes time and luck to make really fit. But if you monitor 𝕏, you'll be able to do it eventually.

A perfect example from John: x.com/johnrushx/stat…

Bonus: the list of startup influencers to follow: x.com/i/lists/177842…

Idea #34

Find the top vloggers on YouTube in your niche. Sort their videos by "popular".Steal the top 3 video ideas. Make better versions of those.

Idea #35

Create a free limited version of a popular paid app. Promote it as a side-project.

Examples: cut out captions generator from descript or 𝕏 analytics from typefully

You will attract users of those tools who only need that 1 thing.

Idea #36

Separate your SaaS into 50 smaller ones and launch them individually.

E.g. my video maker paracast.io will be split into:

• SaaS promo video maker
• book announcement video generator
• new integration video generator

+ 20 more…

Each will have a separate landing page and launch.

Idea #37

Generate pretty hi-res illustrations and give them away as a free set.

I made these with recraft.ai/invite/Zqgblhx…

Idea #38

Start a personal blog.

Mine (isora.me) brings me 165 clicks per month. Not huge, but it has a compound effect.

Every time you write a post on 𝕏 or on гeddt, copy-paste the whole text on your blog first.

Idea #39

Open-source a part of your product (or the whole).

This will allow you to get listed for free on many OS communities and dev tools launchpads (e.g. devhunt.org).

Idea #40

Publish a "State of the Industry" report.

Survey 100+ people in your niche, analyze trends, and release them publicly. Instant authority + backlinks 💪

Idea #41

Get listed on new platforms.

E.g. if you are making a time-tracker, make a Chrome Extension version of it.

If you are making a product image generator, make a Shopify app for it.

Those stores will open your app to a new audience for free.

Idea #42

Make memes!

Memes have the highest virality potential.

Therefore, you can get thousands of users quickly.

Learn the art of memes from the king Dago Renouf and create your own.

Idea #43

Try so-called "Nostalgia Marketing."

Design a retro landing page, icons set, font, UI library, or smth similar.

Example: news.ycombinator.com/item?id=428141…

That's all, Folks! 😮‍💨

This post took me 7.5 hours to write 🙂

If you like it and want more, follow me on 𝕏 @alexanderisorax

and subscribe to my email list: 10k.isora.me

C ya! 😘