How to find your first 10 customers without an audience

You don't need followers to get your first customers. You need to find the people who are already asking for what you built, and answer them better than anyone else does.

Every day, people post things like "is there a tool that…", "any alternative to…" or "how do you handle…" on Reddit, X, LinkedIn, Hacker News, Indie Hackers and niche forums. Those posts are your first customers raising their hand. This guide shows how to find them, how to tell real buyers from noise, and how to reply without sounding like an ad.

1. Describe the problem the way your buyer would

Nobody searches for your product's name. They describe their problem. Before you search anything, write down three to five sentences a frustrated customer might type. For an invoice-reminder tool that might be "clients never pay on time", "how do I chase unpaid invoices without being awkward" or "tool to send automatic payment reminders".

Use their words, not yours. "Accounts receivable automation" is how you describe it. "My client still hasn't paid" is how they do.

2. Search where people actually ask

Google is the best search engine for most communities, because it indexes public posts from all of them. Combine your problem phrases with a site filter and a question pattern:

• site:reddit.com "is there a tool" unpaid invoices
• site:indiehackers.com "how do you" find beta testers
• site:news.ycombinator.com "ask hn" schedule social posts
• "any alternative to" [competitor name]
• inurl:forum "recommend" [your category]

Then use Google's Tools → Past week or Past month filter. A post from yesterday is worth ten from last year: the person is still looking and still reading replies.

3. Keep only people who are asking

Most results will be noise: product pages, listicles, people selling their own tool, and people giving advice rather than asking for it. When we ran First Adopter on itself, it checked 130 posts. It removed 50 that were ads, product pages or listings, and 76 that weren't someone asking (mostly sellers and advice). 4 were real people looking for help.

That ratio is normal. Four real people beat a hundred "leads" you'll never hear back from. For each post, ask three questions:

1. Is a person asking for help, not offering it?
2. Would my product actually solve what they described?
3. Can I still reply? (The thread isn't locked or archived.)

4. Reply to help first

The fastest way to lose a first customer is to drop a link and leave. A reply that works usually has three parts:

1. Answer their exact question in a sentence or two, even if the answer isn't your product.
2. Share what you tried or what worked for others. Specifics build trust.
3. Mention your product last and honestly, only where the community allows it: "I built a tool for this, happy to share if useful."

Many communities ban links or self-promotion in comments. Read the rules first. We wrote a separate guide on how to reply on Reddit without getting banned.

5. Follow up, then do it again tomorrow

Most first customers come from the second message, not the first. If someone answers you, reply the same day. Keep a simple list: who you replied to, when, and whether they answered.

Then repeat daily. New people ask every day, and the founders who get their first ten customers this way are usually the ones who kept showing up for a few weeks.

Doing this without spending your evenings on it

This is exactly what we built First Adopter for. Paste your website and it searches these communities, keeps only people asking for something like your product, ranks who to reply to first and drafts a reply that fits each community's rules. Every lead links to the real post. Try a free check, no signup, or see what founders are asking about finding customers right now.

Questions

How long does it take to find the first 10 customers this way?

It depends on your market and how consistently you reply. Expect weeks, not days. Replying to a handful of fresh, relevant posts every day is what compounds.

Do I need an audience or followers first?

No. You're going to where people already ask, so their audience is the one that matters. Your replies are judged on how helpful they are, not on your follower count.

Is replying to these posts spam?

Not if you answer their actual question, only mention your product where it helps and the community allows it, and say that you built it. Copy-pasted links to every thread are spam.