1. Doing Things That Don't Scale
TL;DR > You cannot acquire your first 10 customers with Facebook ads or SEO. You must acquire them manually through direct outreach and personal networks.
Paul Graham's most famous essay is "Do Things That Don't Scale." For your first 10 customers, you should not be looking for an automated funnel. You should be looking for a handshake.
100%
Manual Acquisition
For successful B2B startups, close to 100% of the first 10 customers are acquired through direct, 1-to-1 manual outreach by the founders.
2. The 3 Channels for the First 10
1. The Warm Network: Former colleagues, college friends, or people you've worked with. (Warning: Ensure they are actually paying, not just doing you a favor). 2. The Hyper-Niche Community: A specific Slack group, Discord server, or subreddit where your target ICP hangs out. 3. The Cold DM: Highly personalized, 2-sentence messages on LinkedIn or Twitter to people complaining about the problem you solve.
Conversion Rates for First 10 Customers
Which channels are actually effective at the very beginning.
3. The Concierge Onboarding
Once you get them, do not point them to a self-serve onboarding flow. You should personally onboard them on a Zoom call. If they have a bug, you should fix it while they are on the phone.
Now that you understand customers, it's time to validate your specific business model. Let's start with How to Validate a SaaS Idea Before Building It.