You could open an ad platform or start working on SEO. But before investing a limited budget in traffic, you need to understand why someone tries your product, where they get stuck, and whether the result is useful.
For a solo founder with a lean budget, personally recruiting early users gives you a chance to observe their work and ask why they get stuck.
This guide breaks acquisition into three tactical stages:
Users 1–10: Personally guide a handful of people through a real task.
Users 11–40: Find more people dealing with the same problem.
Users 41–100: Turn early results into useful examples and peer introductions.
These numbers are planning milestones, not fixed channel boundaries. Keep using an approach while it brings suitable users, and track activation separately from repeat usage.
Before tracking your funnel, set a strict definition for what a "user" actually means.
For this guide, visits, waitlist signups, and unused accounts do not count toward the target. They show interest, but not yet that someone has received value.
Your goal is 100 activated users—people in your intended audience who complete your product’s primary value action with real data.
Product Category
Example Activation Event
Invoicing Tool
User connects real project data and sends an invoice to an actual client
API / DevTool
Developer uses the tool in their own project to complete its core task, such as retrieving the data they need
Site Monitor
Operator connects their site and successfully tests alert delivery
Meeting Assistant
User processes a real meeting and keeps or shares a useful action list
The 1-Sentence Activation Formula:
"We count someone as activated when they use their own [real-world input] to complete [valuable task]."
A demo with sample data can help someone evaluate the interface, but track it separately. Activation proves someone reached an initial result; it does not guarantee they will return or pay.
Targeted:"Helps freelance motion designers generate client invoices when their current process requires copying project details and billable hours between spreadsheets."
A narrow definition gives you a clear target when searching for conversations. Your customers do not have to be developers just because you are one.
2. Users 1–10: Direct Recruiting & Immediate Support
Your first objective is recruiting a small group of suitable users and helping them complete a real task end-to-end.
Start with former colleagues, professional contacts, or builders you already know in your target audience. If nobody in your immediate network fits, reach out to people whose public posts describe the problem directly.
Make a specific invitation: Tie it to a task the person already needs to complete.
Offer close support: Be available over a call or chat during their first attempt.
Observe before helping: Note where they hesitate and which steps need explanation.
Prioritize recurring blockers: Help them get unstuck and give a realistic update time.
Make a Specific Invitation
Asking "Can you test my app?" forces the recipient to figure out what to do. Tie your request to an immediate task:
"Saw you mentioned that preparing client invoices takes too much copying between project files. I built a lightweight tool that automates that specific export. If you have an invoice to send this week, I'd love to help you run it on that job and see if it saves you time."
Stay Close to the First Attempt
Offer to walk through setup over a quick call or chat. Ask them to use real project details and pay close attention:
What do they expect the UI to do next?
Where do they hesitate or ask for clarification?
Is the final output actually usable for their work?
Let them click through on their own first. If you have to guide every step, document that gap—it reveals friction in your onboarding, not that the workflow runs independently.
Prioritize recurring blockers before adding more features. Before expanding outreach, check that suitable users can reach a useful result and that you understand the help they still need.
3. Users 11–40: Find More People With the Same Problem
Once your core flow reliably helps users complete a task, search for people dealing with that exact bottleneck.
Pay attention to the native phrasing your first users used. A user rarely searches for "enterprise financial orchestration"; they post about "manually copying invoice lines again".
Try searches such as:
"how do you [specific task]"
"[tool] missing [needed capability]"
"[competitor] alternative"
"manually exporting [type of data]"
For a developer tool, search for the task or failure your first users describe—for example, "how to inspect webhook payloads". Look for people whose problem your current product can actually solve, rather than every mention of a competitor.
Make Community Replies Useful on Their Own
Read the community rules before replying. Explain a workable approach, disclose your connection to the product, and include a relevant link where product recommendations are welcome. For example:
"If your project details are already in a spreadsheet, an invoice template can reuse those fields instead of making you copy them into a new document. I’m building a tool for that export step. Here’s a walkthrough using sample project details: [Link]."
Contextual Direct Outreach
Keep direct messages concise and focused on the problem:
"Hi [Name] — saw your post about [specific headache]. I'm building [Product], which helps with [concrete task] by [brief technical approach]. Here's a walkthrough using [relevant input]: [URL], if you're still looking for an alternative."
Use these templates with your actual product and a working example. If someone declines, respect that; avoid turning an unanswered contextual message into repeated automated follow-ups.
Track Conversations to Diagnose Drop-Offs
Use a simple spreadsheet to connect conversations with attempts and activation. These are illustrative entries, not actual customer records:
Contact / Post
Source
Specific Bottleneck
Tried Tool?
Activated?
Observed Blocker / Next Question
@designer_dan
r/freelance
Copying project hours
Yes
Yes
Activated with help; requested CSV export
Alex M.
Dev Discord
Connecting project data
Yes
No
Stopped at data import; ask what prevented it
Sarah K.
X Search
Invoice PDF formatting
No
No
Prefers full accounting suite
Use this log to run continuous triage:
Few replies to outreach? Re-evaluate whether you are targeting the right profile or describing the problem clearly.
Replies, but people don't try it? Check whether the task is urgent, the next step is clear, and the setup effort is reasonable.
Users attempt setup but don't activate? Observe an attempt or ask where they stopped. Check for confusing steps, missing inputs, or errors.
Activated, but never return? Check when they next needed the task and what they used. Infrequent tasks need a longer observation window; otherwise, investigate why they chose another approach.
Treat these patterns as starting points for investigation. Repeat the outreach that leads suitable people to activation, and fix recurring obstacles before increasing volume.
Once multiple users reliably complete their tasks, you have raw material far more persuasive than generic product marketing: demonstrated results.
Publish Concrete Workflow Breakdowns
Write a short, grounded breakdown of an actual user's problem and share it where prospective users hang out:
The Task: What was the user trying to accomplish?
The Previous Approach: How were they handling it manually (and where did errors happen)?
The Result: What useful output did they get, and what work remained?
The Setup: What inputs and access does a reader need to try the workflow?
The Next Step: Link to the relevant example or starting point.
For an invoicing tool, show how project details become a usable invoice. For a webhook debugging tool, show how inspecting a payload helped someone find an integration error. Describe observed results; use numbers only when you have measured them.
Share the example where people discuss that task and relevant product posts are welcome. Ask permission before sharing an identifiable customer’s messages or data.
If you are preparing a wider announcement, use the product launch plan and checklist to coordinate the message, trial path, and replies.
Ask for Peer Introductions
When an early user reaches value, ask a straightforward question:
"Do you know one other person dealing with this issue? If someone comes to mind, I can send over a quick overview link you can forward."
Make the introduction optional and easy to forward. Track referred users through the same activation event so you can see whether recommendations bring people your product helps.
5. Make Customer Discovery Part of Your Marketing With Tomako
For a closer look at which marketing tasks to delegate and what to review, see what an AI CMO can do.
Finding the first users teaches you which problems matter, how customers describe them, and which examples make your product worth trying. That knowledge becomes the starting point for your ongoing marketing.
The recurring work is now specific: find relevant discussions, assess the fit, prepare a useful response, and follow through with interested people. Write down the audience, the problems you support, and the situations you should exclude.
For example:
“Our product helps freelance designers turn project spreadsheets into invoices. Relevant conversations involve repeated copying or invoice preparation. Payroll and enterprise accounting are outside our scope.”
Tomako is your Always-On AI CMO, built around the ambition of helping builders bring their products to market. If early outreach has shown you what resonates and you want AI support for the marketing work ahead, Tomako is a next step to explore.
Join Tomako if you’re looking for an AI CMO for your SaaS. Start with the audience and workflow you have identified here, so you know what you need help with.
Your Next Step
Write your activation definition, choose one suitable person, and invite them to complete a task they already need to do. Record the result and the help they needed. Use what you learn to find the next person who can benefit.
Tiny is a co-founder of Tomako, working across the full path from growth strategy to channel execution. His experience spans influencer marketing, affiliate marketing, SEO/GEO, and paid acquisition. As an indie maker and creator, he is especially interested in how small teams can make better growth choices with limited resources. On the Tomako Blog, he writes about channel decisions, practical execution, and lessons from building and growing products.
Tiny
