How to Get Your First SaaS Customer When You Have No Audience

By Tomáš Cina, CEO at Discury · AI-assisted research, human-edited

Editor's Take — Tomáš Cina, CEO at Discury

What strikes me reading these threads is how often founders blame the product or the landing page copy when the real issue is a lack of proximity to the user's pain. I've watched this pattern repeat in the founder-to-founder discussions we monitor at Discury — a founder ships a clever, punchy tool, sees zero signups, and concludes "the market is saturated," when the real problem is that they never validated the specific urgency of the problem. Copy only matters once the audience can plausibly care.

The second trap is the "marketing" delusion. Reddit threads are full of founders asking how to "market" a product that has no proven utility to a paying user. The real signal is whether the recipient has a reason to respond to a cold message AT ALL. When the trigger (a deal blocked by lack of compliance, a broken ad funnel, a specific workflow bottleneck) is fresh, day-of-week noise or "marketing tactics" wash out. When there's no trigger, no landing page optimization rescues you.

If I were starting a B2B outbound motion today, I'd spend the first week building a list I can personally defend as "these people have this specific problem right now," and only then write copy. The founders in this sample often invert the order, and Reddit threads amplify that inversion because template talk is more shareable than the grueling, unscalable labor of manual list-building. Across the discussions we track, the founders who reach their first 10 customers fastest are the ones who treat their first users like consulting clients, not traffic statistics.

Niche communities and the "get first place" trap

Founders often believe they need to "get first place" in market visibility before they can land a paying client, but the threads suggest the opposite: early traction is won in the shadows of niche communities. In a discussion on r/SaaS, u/NeedleworkerSmart486 noted that distribution is the entire game, and ignoring standard content marketing in favor of specific Discord servers or Facebook groups where users vent about workflow pain points is the most effective strategy. u/Mr_Gyan491, who built an AI website assistant, received advice in a recent r/SaaS thread from u/WelcomeAlone8353 to stop marketing entirely and instead make a list of 20 websites where their chatbot would solve a genuine problem, then offer a 30-day free setup in exchange for feedback.

This approach avoids the "marketing" trap that led u/vitlyoshin to report in a recent r/smallbusiness thread that they spent hundreds of dollars on Google and Facebook ads with zero signups. When founders like u/vitlyoshin see no conversions from ads, they often assume the product needs more features, whereas the reality is that the product has not yet been placed in front of a specific, high-intent audience.

"Your marketing starts the day you validated the idea NOT after you have built it." — u/Miserable_Review_541, r/SaaS thread

Direct outreach and the 50-prospect case study to get first customers

One founder in a recent r/smallbusiness thread reported that their first 10 customers came from contacting 50 prospects directly from their network or cold via LinkedIn. The focus here was strictly on feedback, not sales; by asking for 30 minutes of time to provide input on a developing product, this founder found that the prospect often became the first launch client. u/Winter-Picture8807 shared an anecdotal breakdown in that same thread, suggesting that on day one, founders might dedicate 80% of their time to direct outreach and 20% to community engagement, though this is one operator's experience rather than a universal rule.

This strategy is corroborated by u/RealOneSomebody, who found that simply asking for 30 minutes of feedback as the product developed led to referrals and eventually launch clients r/smallbusiness thread. For technical founders who feel uncomfortable selling, this "feedback-first" approach acts as a bridge. It removes the pressure to "close" a deal and replaces it with a collaborative, discovery-oriented conversation.

"Most first customers come from direct outreach, not an audience. Talk to people who actually have the problem your product solves." — u/Ecstatic-Basil-4059, r/smallbusiness thread

How to find paying customers for B2B compliance SaaS

For niche B2B products like a SOC 2 preparation platform, the strategy shifts from general outreach to identifying "moments of urgency." u/RaufAsadov23, who struggled to convert 150 free demo users to paid, found in a recent r/startups thread that positioning as a "guided solution" rather than just a software tool was critical. u/AccordingWeight6019 suggested in the same thread that buyers don't shop for compliance casually; they start looking immediately after a deal gets blocked. The most effective channel is not a broad marketing campaign, but referrals from VCs, auditors, and startup communities where founders are actively feeling the pain of a lost enterprise contract.

The $499 price point mentioned by u/RaufAsadov23 is affordable compared to major compliance tools, yet the price alone was insufficient to drive conversion without the founder's direct, hands-on involvement r/startups thread. This highlights a crucial insight: early-stage B2B buyers are often paying for the founder's expertise and the "de-risking" of their business, not just the software feature set.

"SOC 2 buyers don’t shop casually; they start looking right after a deal gets blocked." — u/AccordingWeight6019, r/startups thread

Why cold DMs require a specific trigger to get first customers

u/treysmith_ landed their first client by sending 50 personalized LinkedIn messages, specifically pointing out a broken ad funnel and offering a fix, rather than using generic sales copy, as noted in an r/Entrepreneur thread. This pattern of high-intent, low-volume outreach appears across multiple threads. u/Emotional_Seat1092, who built a Reddit lead-finder tool, discovered in an r/SaaS thread that 300 cold messages yielded a 3% response rate, confirming that timing is the primary bottleneck. Founders are reaching people who simply aren't in the market at that exact moment, whereas SEO and community participation capture users at the exact point of active searching.

The success of u/Emotional_Seat1092 was ultimately tied to Product Hunt, where they hit #1 product of the day after 3 weeks of intense pre-launch prep, including reaching out to 50+ people individually r/SaaS thread. When founders rely solely on cold DMs, they often fail because they lack the "trigger" mentioned by u/mo_builds; without a specific, time-sensitive problem the user is trying to solve, the cold message is just noise.

"The cold DM data matches exactly what I’ve seen as well. 300 messages, 3% response, near zero conversion." — u/mo_builds, r/SaaS thread

Audit your outreach to get first customers in two hours

The path to your first 10 customers is a manual process that requires abandoning the "marketing" mindset. If you haven't landed a paying customer, you are likely treating your product as a commodity rather than a solution to an urgent, high-stakes problem.

1. Identify the "Oh Fudge" moment: In your niche, find the specific event that triggers an immediate need for your product (e.g., a blocked enterprise deal, a failed audit, a critical workflow breakdown).
2. Build a 50-name list: Using LinkedIn or niche community search, find 50 people who are currently discussing this specific trigger.
3. The "Feedback" outreach: Send a personalized message: "I saw you're dealing with [specific trigger]. I'm building a tool to solve this and I'm not looking for a sale, just 15 minutes of your feedback to see if I'm on the right track."
4. The 30-day pilot: If they agree, offer to set up the product for free for 30 days. If they don't convert to a paid user by the end of the period, your product does not solve their problem with enough urgency.

Where these threads come from for first customers

This analysis draws on 10 r/SaaS, r/Entrepreneur, r/startups, and r/smallbusiness threads that discuss the transition from product build to first customer acquisition. The findings were compiled using Discury, which aggregates discussion threads across SaaS-adjacent subreddits to surface common founder patterns.

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