Your First 10 Users in 7 Days

The goal: 10 users, 7 days

Ten people who signed up, opened the app, and either paid you or used it twice. Not impressions. Not waitlist emails. Not "I starred your Github." Real users.

Why ten? It's enough to learn what you got wrong, not so many that you can't reply to each one personally. Reply to all ten the same week and you'll know more about your product than any analytics dashboard will tell you in a year.

The one rule

Distribute where the people who already feel the problem are talking about it.

That's it. If you built a tool for freelance designers, post in places where freelance designers complain about freelancing. If you built a tool for restaurant owners, find where restaurant owners ask each other for advice. Don't post in r/SideProject and hope. Post where the problem lives.

Channel 1 · DMs to people who said the problem

DMs convert at 5–15% for the first 10 users. Posts convert at 0.1–1%. Send DMs.

Open Twitter/X search. Type the problem you solve in the words your customer uses (not yours). Examples: "hate doing invoices", "client portal nightmare", "deposit tracker". Sort by Latest. Look for posts in the last 90 days where someone is actively complaining.

Send 20 DMs in two hours. Use the template below — copied, customised lightly per person. You're not pitching, you're saying "I made a thing for this exact problem you described." That's the whole sales motion.

Channel 2 · Build-in-public posts

Once a day for 7 days, post one short build-in-public update. Same accounts: X, Indie Hackers (/products feed), maybe r/SideProject if your product fits.

Each post = one screenshot or short Loom + the one new thing you shipped that day. "Added Stripe today, took 30 min." That's the post. The reply guys will ask how, and that thread is your funnel.

Channel 3 · Helpful comments in other threads

Find threads where people are asking 'how do I do X?' that your product solves. Reply with the actual answer, no link. If the thread keeps going and someone says 'wish there was a tool for this,' then you say 'I built one — happy to send you a link.'

This is slow. It also produces the highest-trust users you'll ever get. They asked, you answered, they signed up. Lifetime value of a Channel-3 user is roughly 3x a Channel-2 user in our experience.

The DM template

Replace the bracketed bits. Send. Do not iterate this template for two weeks — measure first.

Hey {{firstName}} — saw your tweet about {{their exact words about the problem}}. I just shipped a thing for that exact pain. {{one-sentence what it does}}. Built solo, not selling anything yet. Mind if I send you a link to try it free? Would mean a lot to hear if it actually solves the thing you described.

The build-in-public post template

Pick one a day. Each is short on purpose.

1. The shipped-today: "Day {{N}}: shipped {{tiny feature}}. Took {{X minutes}}. Made with Fabricate. {{screenshot}}"

2. The honest-progress: "{{N}} users, {{$X}} MRR after {{N}} days. Hardest part so far: {{one specific blocker}}. Building with Fabricate."

3. The ask: "Anyone else hate {{problem}}? I'm shipping a fix this week — would love 3 people to break it for me. Reply 'me' and I'll send the link."

Track what worked

Five minutes of setup will save you weeks of guessing later.

For DMs: keep a Google Sheet — date, person, channel, replied?, signed up?, said anything useful? Three columns is plenty.

For posts and comments: append `?ref=tw-d3` (or whatever) to your signup URL. Fabricate already logs `ref` on signup; you'll see in your analytics exactly which channel converted.

If nothing works after 7 days

Three almost-always causes, in order:

1. Wrong room. You're posting where the people don't actually live. Spend 2 hours finding the actual room — usually a Discord, a niche subreddit, or a Slack/Circle community — and try again.

2. The problem is real but yours is the wrong shape. People reply to your DMs but don't sign up. The pain is there; your solution is wrong. Reply to every non-signer with one question: 'What stopped you?' Their answer is your roadmap.

3. The problem isn't really a problem. People are politely interested but no one's bleeding. This is the painful one. If three weeks of channel 1 give you nothing, you may need to repurpose the app for an adjacent audience or a different pain. Better to learn at week 3 than at month 6.

What's next

You hit 10. Two next moves:

• Email each user personally on day 8. One question: 'Would you pay $X to keep using this?' Their yes/no/maybe is your pricing research.

• Pick the channel that worked best out of your three and go deeper. Don't add channels. Add depth in the one that converted.