How did you acquire your first customers for a consumer SaaS?

- I tweeted every time I was thinking about a feature, building a feature, and released a feature

- I tweeted random things I learned about running a business, as I learned them

- I tapped my personal network on LinkedIn to find out what folks were currently using, and how they were dissatisfied

- I charged way too low and attracted un-ideal customers

- I made a free tier to compete with other providers that also charged way too low

- I wrote changelogs for every big feature

- I wrote docs for every feature

- I kept a mailing list where I would update folks about the product's progress

- I kept a mailing list where I would update folks about running the SaaS

- I talked about OnlineOrNot on Reddit, Hacker News, in the aim of inspiring people to launch their idea in a highly competitive space

- I shared OnlineOrNot on popular lists (Product Hunt, etc)

- I made landing pages that resonate with folks looking specifically for my type of product

- I built features customers asked for

- I would spend one week marketing, followed by one week coding, and repeat

- I was extremely responsive to customers via email and chat

- I kept improving the product, adding features, and revisiting features

There's probably a lot more, but that's what comes to mind first.

I found better results with LinkedIn in promoting my business and getting site visitors. It’s so satisfying when something eventually works! Tbh I am surprised as I wasn’t the biggest fan of LinkedIn in the past. On the contrary, reddit has proven very difficult to promote anything. HNs is also tricky, so many posts lol. Facebook groups relevant to you are anither option! I also find that organic growth and referrals from close trusted friends have higher success rates at sharing your message. All the best!

I made a vscode extension which I charge money for. I mainly relied on reddit + seo to gain users. Eg: I made interesting reddit posts, and made a pretty website. Then users find it organically

In my observation of some successful sales folks:

* Build a relationship of trust with key people inside the customer org

* Keep showing up (literally) and be friendly and helpful

* Frame the ask as a trial or something that fits in their business patterns and budgets

I run a SaaS which, increasingly, seems to resonate with a conservative parents, so I've started targeting more conservative media and social media. I am a little concerned about public image in the future, but that seems more like a problem to deal with after I have a meaningful amount of customers.

Betalist/Pitchwall - These both feel scammy to me. You sign up, and then they try to extract a few hundred dollars from you to list your product. For a non-target audience who probably doesn’t exist this seems like a bad idea. I haven’t used ProductHunt yet, however I am suspicious of it too, despite them having a greater market dominance.

Reddit (and scored.co) - Reddit has proved difficult, because it has strict account age rules and karma requirements for posts. The subreddits I want to post to also usually have strict spam rules, which would include my posts (even though I’d hardly count a CEO doing a Q/A on his product spam, but I digress). Sticking with the conservative theme I also tried scored.co, which had the best sign up rate, althoguh ultimately though my posts were still removed due to spam/off topic rules.

4chan - Famously (allegedly?) Notch got all of Minecraft’s early customers through 4chan, so it seemed like it could be a good idea. Unfortunately I found it wasn’t. I got a lot of interaction, more than hacker news with dozens of comments, but neither post showed any click through. I also ran ads; these were very cheap, at around $0.08 per thousand views, however they had unbelievably low click through rates and even worse sign ups. I got more people offering to work for the company than trying to buy our product.

Quora - This is nice in the sense they aren’t banning me, however timing questions seems to be tricky. I’ve answered old questions which get no new traffic, and I’ve yet to find appropriate new questions to answer. I’m also watching stack exchange, which has a parenting exchange, however it has the same waiting issue.

Twitter/Truth Social/Gab - Twitter is actually great for messaging influencers, I've been surprised with how many major influencers message back even if I'm not verified (although I haven't really made anything happen yet). I also find on smaller sites (Gab/Truth), the group feature can be a great benefit, as people do watch and interact with it groups. I am recently verified on Twitter though, so I'll have to see if that helps with anything. I suspect you could use mastodon.social and have similar results for more left-wing targeted ads. One thing I've also been trying (which I've heard works) is responding to popular posts with your account to drive traffic. While some replies have received attention, it hasn't driven any traffic.

Obviously I am OP, I just didn't want to pollute the description with my comment.