How did you acquire your first 100 users?

I started with writing open source Ruby gem https://github.com/ArturT/knapsack for running tests in parallel on CI and later I gave a talk on local meetup event for Ruby developers.

With time I wrote more blog posts https://docs.knapsackpro.com and shared on Reddit, Twitter, LinkedIn profile or Ruby groups. From time to time posts landed in RubyWeekly newsletter.

Also asking users for recommendation might help.

I connected with each person on LinkedIn I talked to or who signed up and I followed them on Twitter. People who like your product can easily see you publish new content and can like or share it.

Depends on what you offer.

  A lunch offering service like foodsby goes to a building manager of small office spaces to offer a coupon code

  A SaaS service drops a post on here

  If you are offering goods platforms like kickstarter or producthunt

I launched https://extracttable.com on Aug'27 this year with a post here (no better place than HN), reached the first 100 customers under 60 days, with 22 paid customers. Right now, the count is at 197, hopefully crossing 250 by EOY

KeyDB got it's start as a post on here. Expect people to be skeptical but in the end quite a lot will try it.

The original post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19368955

https://github.com/JohnSull1y/KeyDB

We hit the phones and met a lot of people.

After 100 paid customers, we’ve found true product market fit and are now gearing up for a true SaaS offering - we’ll continue to hit the phones though!

We started a private beta for our app, posted about it on social media and submitted it to sites like betalist.com