How to get your first 100 users (and then 1,000), even if you hate marketing

You shipped. The landing page is live, the sign-up button works, and you've refreshed the analytics eleven times today. It says 3 users. Two of them are you.

Here's the uncomfortable truth: nobody is coming. Not because the product is bad, but because nobody knows it exists yet. The good news is that your first 100 users don't need a genius marketer, a viral moment or a budget. They need you to do a handful of boring things every day, for longer than feels reasonable.

This guide is the whole playbook: where to list your product (with 40+ links), what to post, who to message, what to write for search, when to pay for ads, and what changes between user 100 and user 1,000.

You don't need to be a genius. You just need to be relentless.

First, the math

100 users sounds like a mountain when you have 3. Break it into pieces and it stops looking like one:

These are rough numbers, and yours will differ. The shape won't: no single channel gets you to 100, but stacked together they get you there in four to eight weeks. That's the whole strategy. Many small channels, at the same time, every day.

Before you start: get three things ready

1. A one-sentence pitch. "[Product] helps [who] [get what] without [the pain]." If you can't say it in one sentence, a stranger scrolling a directory won't work it out in five seconds.
2. A page that does one thing. One headline, one screenshot or demo, one button. Every listing below sends people to it, so make the button a sign-up or an email capture, never "Learn more".
3. A way to know what worked. Add UTM tags to every link you post (?utm_source=producthunt&utm_medium=launch), so a month from now you can see which channels brought users who stayed, not just clicks. We wrote a whole checklist on getting tracking right.

Then build a launch kit once, so every listing takes five minutes instead of an hour:

• Product name and a tagline under 60 characters
• A short description (about 160 characters) and a long one (about 300 words)
• A square logo (at least 240 × 240), 3–5 screenshots (1270 × 760 suits most galleries) and a 30-second demo video or GIF
• Your pricing, category, founder name and social links
• A launch offer, like a longer trial or a discount code, for people who find you through a directory

Keep it all in one doc. You're about to paste from it forty times.

Step 1: Launch everywhere

If a site lets you list your product, list it. Each listing is a small, permanent stream of visitors, a link back to your site (which matters for search, more in step 5) and one more place where someone browsing your category can stumble on you. Most of them cost nothing but ten minutes.

One warning before the lists: prices, queues and rules change all the time, so check each site's current terms before you pay for anything.

The big launch days

These send a spike of traffic on one day. Plan them; don't fire them off on a Tuesday afternoon.

How to launch on Product Hunt without an audience:

• Go live at 12:01 a.m. Pacific. Product Hunt's day resets at midnight in San Francisco, so you get the full 24 hours.
• Consider the weekend. Tuesday to Thursday is the most crowded. A weekend launch has less competition, a better shot at the top five and the same "Launched on Product Hunt" badge.
• Write the first comment yourself. Who you are, why you built it, what's free, and what feedback you want.
• Tell your own people you're live, your email list, friends, X, LinkedIn and communities, and ask them to take a look and leave honest feedback. Don't ask for upvotes: Product Hunt watches for it and it can bury your launch.
• Reply to every comment within the hour, all day long. The people who comment are your first users.

Show HN, the right way: the title is "Show HN: [Name] – [what it does, plainly]". No marketing words. People have to be able to try it without a sales call or a waiting list. Stay in the comments all day and answer the hard questions straight; Hacker News rewards founders who take criticism well.

AppSumo, the honest version: a lifetime deal can bring hundreds of users in a week and pay for months of runway. It can also bring hundreds of users who'll never pay you again and expect support forever. Do it when you need cash and feedback at volume, not as your first move.

Startup and indie launch sites

Smaller audiences, but every one is a listing that stays up and a link back to you. Most work the same way: free with a waiting list, or a fee to launch sooner. Do five a day for a week.

• Uneed
• Microlaunch
• Fazier
• TinyLaunch
• PeerPush
• Tiny Startups
• Startup Fame
• Launching Next
• Launchtory
• SideProjectors
• Startup Stash

And three profiles that aren't launch sites but get found by investors, journalists and partners: Crunchbase, Wellfound and F6S.

Alternative and comparison sites

This is where buyers go when they're already shopping: "what's a cheaper alternative to X?" That makes it some of the highest-intent traffic you'll ever get from a free listing.

Review sites

Slower to pay off, but these pages rank on Google for "[category] software" and "[competitor] reviews", and buyers trust them. Claim your free profile now and ask your first happy users for reviews later (more on that below).

• G2
• Capterra: one Gartner Digital Markets vendor account also covers GetApp and Software Advice
• TrustRadius

AI tool directories

If your product uses AI at all, these are worth a morning. Many charge a submission fee: the big ones usually earn it back, the tiny ones often don't.

• There's An AI For That
• Futurepedia
• Toolify
• Future Tools
• Dang.ai
• SaaS AI Tools
• AI Tools Directory

App stores where your buyers already shop

If your product plugs into something, that platform's app store is a directory with buyers already inside: the Shopify App Store, the Chrome Web Store, the WordPress plugin directory or Zapier's app directory.

Communities: be a person, not a press release

• r/SideProject, r/SaaS and r/alphaandbetausers on Reddit
• Indie Hackers posts and groups
• DEV if your buyers are developers

Read each community's rules before you post; most ban drive-by links. "I spent six months building X, here's what I learned" with the link at the end does far better than "Check out my app!"

Step 2: Stalk your competitors

Your competitors have already done the research on where your buyers hang out. Borrow it.

1. Look for "Featured on" badges in their footer and on their homepage. That's a list of launch sites that worked for them.
2. Put their domain into a free backlink checker like Ahrefs' Backlink Checker. Every directory, roundup and "best tools for X" article that links to them is a place you can ask to be added to.
3. Google "[competitor] alternatives", "best [category] tools" and "[competitor] vs". Every list on page one is a door: email the author a one-line pitch and the reason your tool belongs on it.
4. Find them on AlternativeTo, G2 and Capterra, then list yourself in the same categories, as an alternative to them.
5. Read their one-star reviews. That's your marketing copy, written for free by their unhappy customers. "Too expensive", "too complicated", "support never answers": if you fix it, say so, in their words.

Then write an honest "[Competitor] alternative" page on your own site for each one. Someone searching that phrase is ready to switch today.

Step 3: Post like your life depends on it

One post won't do anything. A hundred posts will do something, and nobody can predict which one will hit, which is exactly why you have to do all hundred.

Pick one or two platforms where your buyers already spend time (X and LinkedIn for B2B; TikTok, Instagram and YouTube Shorts for consumers; Reddit for niches) and post there every day for 100 days. Not seven platforms half-heartedly. Two, properly.

What to post once you've run out of ideas (you will, around day nine):

• Build in public. What you shipped, what broke, the real numbers. "Day 14: 23 users, 2 paying. Here's what the 2 have in common."
• The lesson. One thing you learned that others in your space would want to know.
• Before and after. The job done the slow way, then with your product. A screen recording beats a paragraph.
• The teardown. Pick something popular in your niche apart and explain why it works.
• The hot take. An opinion half your audience agrees with. The replies come from the other half.
• The user story. What someone achieved with your product, with their permission.

Copy what went viral, but copy the shape, not the words. Find the ten best-performing posts in your niche this month and note the pattern: the hook in the first line, the length, image or video, list or story. Write your own version about your own topic. Every Sunday, look at your numbers, do more of the formats that worked and drop the ones that didn't. Tweak. Repeat.

A good rule: for every post about your product, publish four that help your audience without mentioning it.

Step 4: Cold DMs and replies

This is the channel nobody wants to do, and for the first 100 users it gives you the best odds per hour, because you choose exactly who hears about you.

Find the people already asking for what you built. Search X, Reddit and LinkedIn for:

• "anyone know a tool" plus your category
• "alternative to [competitor]"
• "how do you [the job your product does]"
• complaints like "[competitor] is so expensive"

These people have the problem right now, and they said so in public. They're the warmest leads on the internet.

Reply first, DM second. Answer the question properly, in public, as if your product didn't exist. If your tool genuinely fits, mention it in one line at the end. Then, if you DM at all, you're messaging someone who already knows who you are.

Writing the DM:

• Be short. Under 50 words.
• Be real. Mention the specific thing they posted.
• Be helpful. Lead with what's in it for them.
• One-sentence pitch. That's all the room you get.
• No link in the first message. Ask whether they want it.

Saw your post about [the specific problem]. I built [product] for exactly that: it [one-sentence outcome]. Want me to set you up with a free account? No worries if not.

Send 20 a day and track them in a spreadsheet: who, where, when, replied, signed up. After a month you'll have started around 600 conversations and you'll know far more about who actually wants this than any survey would tell you.

No spam. Don't paste the same message to 500 strangers, don't message people who never mentioned the problem, and stop after one follow-up. Spam gets accounts banned, and it burns the exact market you'll need for user number 1,000.

Step 5: AI + SEO = traffic that keeps coming

Every other channel stops when you stop. Search keeps sending people while you sleep, but only after months of work, so start now even though it'll feel useless for a while.

Yes, use AI to write. No, don't publish 50 generic AI posts. Google is good at spotting pages that say what every other page already says, and those don't rank. Let AI do the outline, the research and the first draft. Then add what only you know: your numbers, your screenshots, your opinions, the mistakes you made. That's what makes a page rank, and what makes a reader trust you.

Write what buyers search for, not what you find interesting:

Write one article per search phrase; two posts chasing the same search just compete with each other. Aim for 50 solid ones over six months, about two a week. That's enough to see which topics pull.

Get your domain rating to 15+. Domain rating (DR) is Ahrefs' 0–100 score for the strength of the links pointing at your site; check yours free with their Website Authority Checker. A brand-new domain sits near zero and struggles to rank for anything. The listings from step 1, a couple of guest posts and a spot on the roundups you found in step 2 are usually enough to pass 15, around where a young site's articles start showing up for smaller, specific searches. Many directory links are "nofollow", which means they count for less in search, but they still bring visitors.

Tell the search engines you exist. Add your site to Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools and submit your sitemap to both. It takes ten minutes, and it's the only way to see which searches you're already showing up for.

Step 6: Run some damn ads

Ads are the only channel where you can buy speed. They're also the fastest way to burn money, so start small and make every dollar teach you something.

• Fix your tracking first. If the ad platform can't see sign-ups, it optimizes for clicks, and cheap clicks are cheap for a reason.
• Google Search: bid on the same searches from step 5: competitor names plus "alternative", your category plus "software", the problem itself. People searching are already looking. Start narrow with exact and phrase match keywords.
• Meta (Facebook and Instagram): best for bringing back the people your other channels sent who didn't sign up, and for consumer products with a strong visual. Here's how retargeting tiers work.
• Microsoft Ads (Bing): yes, even Bing. A smaller audience, often cheaper clicks, and plenty of desktop B2B buyers. You can import your Google campaigns in a few minutes.

Optimize it once, then let it run. The biggest ad mistake isn't a bad ad, it's fiddling every day. Big edits restart the platform's learning. Set it up properly, give it one to two weeks, then make one decision: cut it, keep it or scale it. Then leave it alone again.

Decide up front what you'll spend to learn, say $300–500 over a month. If it brings users at a cost you can live with, scale it. If it doesn't, you've learned what your buyers don't respond to, and that was cheap.

From 100 users to 1,000: what changes

The first 100 come from hustle. The next 900 come from doubling down.

1. Look at the numbers. By now your UTM tags show which two or three channels brought users who stuck around. Spend most of your time there and cut the rest. Doing everything was right for the first 100; it's wrong for the next 900.
2. Talk to your first 100. Get on a call with ten of them. Ask what almost stopped them signing up, and what they'd tell a friend about it. Their words become your headlines, your ads and your directory descriptions.
3. Turn them into proof. Ask happy users for a review on G2 or Capterra, a testimonial for your homepage or a quote you can post. Reviews make every listing from step 1 work harder.
4. Email everyone, automatically. A welcome, a nudge to finish setup, a "we haven't seen you in a while" and an upgrade email catch most of the users who signed up and drifted. Start with these four email flows.
5. Add a referral loop. Give users something for bringing a friend: extra credits or a free month. 1,000 gets a lot easier when the first 300 bring their friends.
6. Find partners who already have your audience. Newsletters, YouTubers, communities and agencies that serve your buyers. Offer an affiliate commission or a guide you write together. One good partner can be worth a month of posting.
7. Launch again. Ship something big, then launch it. Real news is welcome on Product Hunt, Hacker News and the communities from step 1.
8. Don't stop posting or publishing. Around day 100 of posting is where it starts working, and somewhere around article 30 is where search starts to compound. Most people quit right before that.

A 30-day plan you can start on Monday

About two hours a day. Not glamorous. It works.

No secret. Just consistent, boring work.

Every "overnight success" you've seen on Product Hunt had a hundred quiet days behind it: listings nobody noticed, posts with four likes, DMs with no reply. The founders who got to 1,000 users weren't better marketers. They just didn't stop.

If the boring part is what's stopping you, that's what we built My Marketing Buddy for. Its AI agents write and publish your articles, draft the daily posts, find the conversations worth replying to, watch your ads and keep your tracking honest, and nothing goes out without your approval. You keep the part only you can do: talking to your users.