8 Underrated Marketing Ideas to Find the First Users For Your SaaS Startup

Getting your first users for a tech startup can feel like chasing a needle in a haystack. Forget the same old advice about ads, posting content into the void and networking events.

There are smarter, free and underrated ways to get people talking about your product. In this article, we’re diving into unconventional, game-changing actionable tactics to attract those first users fast.

Whether you’re bootstrapping or scaling, these strategies will give your startup the spark it needs to accelerate revenue and growth. Let’s get started!

1. Share your product in the following subreddits where submissions are allowed:

• r/RoastMyStartup

• r/AlphaandBetausers

• r/GrowthHacking

• r/Digitalnomad

• r/Promotereddit

• r/Entrepreneur

• r/EntrepreneurRideAlong

• r/IMadeThis

• r/IndieBiz

• r/SideProject

• r/SmallBusiness

• r/Startups

• r/Growmybusiness

• r/Linkbuilding

• r/SEO

• r/Freepromote

• r/SocialMediaMarketing

• r/Analytics

• r/Content_marketing

• r/Advertising

• r/PPC

• r/AskMarketing

2. Recruit beta testers using Linkedin Jobs

Here’s how to get 500 users for your product/SaaS for free:

1. Make a free job posting on Linkedin
2. Make it explicit: ‘volunteer role, no pay'
3. Recruit beta-test volunteers for your startup
4. Redirect them to Google form and collect emails
5. Set up a Zapier automation to send emails to applicants for them to test the web app

P.s. Repeat step 1 every 6 hours. Linkedin free job posting caps out at 150 views (the algorithm de-ranks after that)

3. Send cold emails using Apollo

1. Access: Apollo. io
2. Click on Search and select “C-level” under job titles
3. Choose "verified" for the Email status
4. Insert your business niche in the “Currently hiring for” section (to detect a clear buying intent for your solution)
5. Filter companies with an ARR ranging from 0.1 - 5 Million USD
6. Save search results and add scraped emails to the new sequence
7. Use the following subject line: [Their company] <> [Your Company]
8. Don't sell in the first email, instead, outline your value proposition in under 50 words.
9. Avoid spam words: free trial, investment opportunity, etc.

P.s. If you want to stand out and get 20% more replies, consider increasing the font size of the body text from normal to Header 1.

4. Launch your startup on Product Hunt

1. Sign up for free on Producthunt com

2. Set up a teaser page for your business

3. Locate the discussion section

4. Find the CEOs who are active members of PH

5. Send them connection request on Linkedin

6. Say Hi and tell them that you are launching the product soon and you will support their upcoming launches too.

7. 8 out of 10 people will subscribe to the teaser page.

5. Use Parasite Marketing and join Facebook groups

1. Identify the businesses which are already selling to your ICP

2. Find their official Facebook or Linkedin groups

3. Share educational content that solves their micro problems

4. Optimize your bio or open your DMs so people can reach out to you

6. Join Pinterest Group Boards

1. Go to Pinterest .com

2. Add the main keyword in the search bar

3. Locate the filters section

4. Select boards that have “Request to join” button

5. Distribute and promote the product for free to 1000s of target followers

7. Find warm leads using Phantom Buster

How to find warm leads i.e. get customers easily:

1. Go to Phantom Buster
2. Select Twitter Liker Collector workflow
3. Find 5 tweets that are very popular among your ideal customers
4. Export the liker profiles using step 2
5. Insert your offer in the Twitter Message Sender
6. Click launch and automate workflows
7. Reply to follow-up messages

8. Find B2B/enterprise customers using Getkoala's Free database

If you have $0 for marketing, here’s what you should do:

1. Go to “Getkoala com database”

2. Filter companies based on industry and revenue

3. Download up to 10,000 company profiles for free

4. Reach out to C-level executives from those companies and softly pitch your products or services