First customers

The first customers rarely come from a launch post. They come from the founder going to them, one by one, in the places where they already gather. This skill chooses the channels to test, writes the outreach, and tracks what works.

When to use

• When the MVP or a pre-sale offer is ready.
• When a launch brought no users, or when the founder does not know where to start selling.
• Not for brand strategy or large advertising budgets.

Inputs

1. The target customer, and where they already spend time and attention.
2. The offer and its price.
3. The founder's network, skills, budget and weekly hours, and what has already been tried.

Method

1. Describe where the target already is: communities, events, professional networks, shops, newsletters, marketplaces, the words they type in search engines.
2. Rank the channels with the Bullseye framework (Weinberg and Mares): brainstorm ideas for each of the nineteen traction channels of their book (from content and public relations to sales, partnerships, search, events and communities), then sort them into three rings: promising, possible, unlikely.
3. Test the top three cheaply and in parallel: a small budget, about two weeks, and one metric per channel (cost per lead, reply rate, sign-ups) with a target set before the test.
4. Do things that don't scale (Graham): recruit users one by one, onboard them by hand, follow up personally. It teaches what customers need and creates the first fans.
5. Write the outreach: short, personal, about the recipient's problem, with one clear ask and a follow-up plan; adapt it to each channel; add a call script and a demo outline.
6. Prospect within the law. Check the current rules on the regulator's page (CNIL in France, AEPD in Spain). In France, emailing individuals generally requires their prior consent, while professionals can be contacted about their work if they can easily object. In every case, say who you are and honor every request to stop.
7. Track a simple funnel in a spreadsheet: contacted, replied, meeting, trial, paying, by channel. Review it every week, double down on the channel that works, and drop the others.

Output

### Where the target already is
…

### Bullseye
Promising: … | Possible: … | Unlikely: …

### Channel tests (two weeks)
| Channel | Test | Budget | Metric | Success if |
|---|---|---|---|---|

### Outreach
<email, direct message and call script, adapted to each channel>

### Weekly funnel
| Week | Contacted | Replied | Meetings | Trials | Paying |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|

Quality bar

• Channels come from where the target already is, and each test has a metric and a target set in advance.
• Outreach is personal, honest and legal: no bought lists of individuals, no fake urgency, every opt-out honored.
• Benchmarks (reply or conversion rates) come from cited sources or are labeled as assumptions.
• The funnel uses real counts and leads to a decision every week.
• Written in the user's language, with the terms below.

Terminology

Sources

• Weinberg, G., & Mares, J. (2015). Traction: How Any Startup Can Achieve Explosive Customer Growth. Portfolio.
• Graham, P. (2013, July). Do things that don't scale. http://paulgraham.com/ds.html
• CNIL. (n.d.). La prospection commerciale par courrier électronique. https://www.cnil.fr/fr/la-prospection-commerciale-par-courrier-electronique