[7 actionable ways to get your first 1,000 users - pt.2]
Welcome to Part two of “7 actionable ways to get your first 1,000 users.” In part one we covered methods that solely relied on your own inputs, such as finding your customers online and offline, and using referral to scale with inviting people from your network. Part two is more geared towards using other parties to generate customers, but just like part one, the key is to test and find the right channel fit for your business. Essentially every major consumer app acquired their early users using these methods, including Netflix, Instagram, Uber, Tinder, TikTok, and many more.
4. FOMO - Fear of Missing Out
Nobody likes to be excluded, that's almost a universal law, especially when the grass seems greener on the inside. So by creating an immense value-proposition and restricting the number of people that can access your product/service, you can start leveraging FOMO to generate users.
Especially when your product relies heavily on user generated content, the higher quality your initial users are, the more value proposition there is for the masses who are on the outside looking in. This is how Pinterest and Instagram grew their initial users, by providing access to high quality designers and artists as their early users, and setting up an invite only waitlist to create FOMO.
5. KOL and Influencers
This one is pretty straightforward, you want to identify the opinion leaders in your space, reach out to them, ask for feedback, work with them, and if they love your product, ask them to share with their followers. This method also works well together with FOMO, if you provide access to the influencers followers, they are more likely to share with their followers.
6. Getting press
Getting press is actually not as hard as one would think for a first time/early stage founder. The key to working with media is similar to working with influencers and KOLs, the first step is to identify relevant media companies or writers that’ll be interested in your story. Two ways to get published is to either provide some unique insights or learnings that aren't general knowledge for them, something they can only get from you, or what you are doing can add to an existing conversation that is happening right now.
7. Built a Community before launch
This method usually pays off more than just customer numbers, as you are able to interact with potential users to improve your product, you are also building a following and becoming a KOL yourself. If you are really short on time and are unable to build a community yourself, the second best thing is to be involved in one. One sure way to ensure you’ll have 1,000 customers when you launch your product is to already have 1,000 people in a community interested in the problem.
Big thanks goes to Lenny Rachitsky for collecting these data and inspiring this 2 part article, I’ve linked to the original post if you wish to learn more about it.
Lastly, although we’ve just closed the application to AW#21, but if you happened to just miss the deadline, you can still apply through this link to join the largest founder community in Greater Southeast Asia >> http://bit.ly/2rd33c9
