Ask HN: How do you get your first users for an MVP? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How do you get your first users for an MVP?

15 pointsamina12411 comments

For founders building an MVP today, what’s the best way to get the first users and prove there’s real demand before talking to investors?

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If you describe your MVP using the following pattern:

[customer profile] has [problem] so I built [solution]

Then you should have an idea of who the product is for and then you can figure out where to find them. For example:

Boat owners who store their boats at home don't have a convenient way to move their trailers around so I built a motorized trailer puller that is controllable using a smartphone so they can move their boats without using their vehicle.

So I need to reach people who have boats on trailers. They are easy to find down at any boat ramp or marina. I could go down there and set up a prototype and show them how it works, get feedback, and maybe show them a QR code to join a mailing list. I could also go to boat shows, FB groups, subreddits, YouTube, etc.

Do you have a customer profile you could share, and maybe people can offer suggestions for how to reach them?

Who did you talk to to validate the product design when developing your MVP? They are your first users.

I'm pretty new to this. I've built a few websites, but none of them have gotten much traffic yet.

My current understanding is that there are roughly two approaches:

1. Find new/emerging demand, such as new Google search trends, build early, and let users discover you through search.

2. Build for an existing demand, where competition is already strong, and actively promote the product and build a brand through Reddit, LinkedIn, YouTube, communities, etc.

Sounds like maybe putting the cart before the horse?

I wouldn’t suggest building an MVP until having in-depth conversation conversations with your target customers first. It’s called market validation.

As entrepreneurs, many times, we assume we know what people’s pain points are in my experience has shown that that assumptions are often incorrect.

I would suggest that you find your potential customers instead of trying to sell them or get them to try your product you first interview them to ensure that your MVP is what will solve their pain points

For me, social media and directories (like SaaSHub, Capterra etc.) are not working. Of course, you should try them and track the results — measure the traffic generated by each source. Be aware that logs may rotate, so make sure to check them frequently, save and analyse.

In my case, the only source of traffic and registrations is recommendations from AI assistants, so I focus on GEO - structured data in the source, proper indexing in Bing and Google.

I am running a small-scale project without a marketing budget, so this is more of an observation than a conclusion based on proven, repeatable statistics.

What do you mean by structured data in the source?

Also, do you think that presence on directories like SaaSHub helps for GEO? I’m wondering how we can measure that.

By structured data, I mean a JSON-LD section in the source code that describes my project. I've included: WebApplication, offers.price: 0 , sameAs, FAQPage. Bing read it but still I don't have a proof how effectively it influences LLM-s.

So far directories didn't bring me registrations but my scale is too small to determine whether being listed in directories helps with user acquisition or SEO/GEO while I observe registration with LLMs refer. How do I measure that? I correlate server logs with application log (mainly registrations). I observe for example GPT scans as a result of conversation with user and seconds/minutes after that entry and registration in the system. It supprts my observation about traffic source quite accurately. Can you provide more data here and let us know whether LLMs regularly scan directories and how it looks on your end?

Write about it. Add a blog to your function once you have identified your target audience. Make sure you can create links from the posts. Once you have the short articles, post the link with commentary to where the right audience is. This is often in places like Reddit. Reddit has a lot of topical forums.

You want to sit down and write something called an ICP, Ideal Customer Profile who you imagine would be the ideal customer for your product. This is the primary target.

Then you want to do another thing. Figure out how what you created is being used. It might not be anything which you planned. Once you figure out how your thing is being used figure out where the people who are using it are. Then go there.

It seems that in the age of social media, the best way to build an audience cheaply or for free is to post as many short videos as possible on TikTok, Instagram, and so on :) But it will be interesting to read about other methods as well.

I think the moment you begin building, start talking about it, for example in X spaces, linkedin or on insta reels if you can make content. That's how i got users in my first project. It will also give you firsthand idea what features you need to build.

Feature someone else's MVP. You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours. It's all one big circle jerk.

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