SaaS Videos

How To Get Your First Users

The video tackles one of the most persistent challenges for founders: how to acquire a product’s very first paying users. It reframes the problem as a search for early adopters rather than a persuasion exercise, arguing that the initial version of a startup should be a “minimum evolvable product” – a simple, adaptable offering that can survive exposure to a tiny, highly‑motivated user base and then iterate rapidly. Key insights include four practical tactics. First, target people who actively seek new tools or have a burning need, exemplified by the speaker’s colleague Gustaf at Airbnb and the anecdote of becoming the first customer of a startup that solved an urgent inference‑API problem. Second, charge real money from day one because paying customers provide sharper, more actionable feedback than free users. Third, use highly targeted personal outreach—cold emails, direct knocks—rather than mass‑media channels. Fourth, launch early, study users anthropologically, run fast experiments, and accept churn as a normal part of the learning curve. The talk is peppered with vivid examples. The speaker recounts paying a fledgling startup for an API within three days, illustrating that problem relevance trumps brand reputation. He also draws a parallel to Tesla’s Roadster, noting that the high‑margin, niche early product shaped the company’s later mass‑market models because early adopters cared more about tech and acceleration than comfort. A memorable quote underscores the point: “Early adopters and people with a burning problem are rarely price sensitive.” The implications are clear for any founder, especially in the AI era where consumer budgets are thin and ad‑supported models struggle to cover high compute costs. By securing a handful of paying, problem‑driven users, startups can steer product evolution, validate pricing, and build a feedback loop that informs subsequent pivots. This approach reduces the pressure to launch a polished final product, allowing founders to iterate quickly and align the product’s trajectory with the real needs of its earliest champions.