how to get your first customers: 6 tactics, from one warm email to 5,000 flyers

when Parr launched Trends, a paid research product, he did not start with ads. on the captions: "the hustle at the time probably had a million emails and I just found the 300 engaged users." he "sent them an email that basically explained this story and linked to the gumroad page." then the part most people skip: "I actually got on the phone with all 100 of them," asking why they bought, what they wanted and what they expected. the first report was built from those calls: "we built the product around just calling those people." no big list? for Hampton he says he messaged people on Twitter and LinkedIn, leaning on his reputation instead of an audience.

the tactic: warm people first, then a real call. a story email gets the yes. the call tells you what to build.

try this week: list 30 people who already know your work: readers, past clients, colleagues, people who reply to you. send each a short personal email with why you are building this and one link. call everyone who says yes and write down their exact words.

Parr's first startup, Bunk, matched roommates. instead of building traffic, he posted on Craigslist, where apartment hunters already searched, and invited them to events. on the captions: "we already knew the Seekers were there and so it was just a piggyback where people already were." the hosts also argue small beats big at the start: "when I have no customers 10 customers is a big win," so ask "where can I go that is small but hyper obsessed." for one host's e-commerce brand that was niche Facebook groups of maybe 5,000 people, where they shared the ups and downs of the launch instead of a sales pitch, and "people really started rooting for us." the point: "who those 100 customers are actually matters."

the tactic: find the small room that already cares. obsessed people buy first and tell the rest.

try this week: find three places where your buyer already talks about the problem: a subreddit, a Facebook group, a Discord, a forum or a meetup. read a week of posts. then share one honest story about why you are building this, within each group's rules.

in 2022 Brez posted on TikTok several times a day, every day, on both his brand account and his personal account; the host works it out at around 120 posts a month and says "That's a lot of testing." asked why so much, on the captions: "every video I posted was a chance to get a sale for my brand." and the math that made it obvious: "I can literally post these videos for free and it can make my business money. Why would I not post them?" the same page has a locked tactic that keeps this honest: Fix The Product Before You Market It. posting a lot only helps if the thing is worth buying.

the tactic: judge free posts by sales, not likes. each post is a free sales call. more calls, more sales.

try this week: post once a day for seven days on one free channel your buyer uses. each post shows one real problem, result or behind-the-scenes moment, and ends with one way to buy or book. count replies and sales per post, not views.

Welch's latest business started as content, not a product. on the captions: "I came up with this idea to take a random stranger from broke to rich in 30 days." the offer came free first: "we launched this originally as a free course, as an affiliate play. And we got around 50,000 people to sign up for the free course." the paid offer followed the demand: "People wanted coaching. And I wasn't even planning on doing that." his rule for all of it: "you have to have a story attached to your brand." fair warning: he already had a big audience, so expect smaller numbers. the order still works at any size.

the tactic: prove the result in public, for free, before you charge. the free version finds the people who want the paid one.

try this week: design a free seven-day challenge around the one result your product gives. post day one in public today. at the end, offer the paid version only to the people who finished.

Hormozi describes how most people test a channel, on the captions: "I talked to three people and that was it. And they said they didn't want it." he did the same. a mentor with a 22-location chain told him to put out flyers. he put out 300 and one person called, to complain. the mentor asked: "Well, what was your test size?" then: "it's tough to know if anything works at 300." the mentor tested 5,000 per batch, then ran 3,000 a day once it worked, about 150,000 a month. Hormozi's lesson: "the volume of activity and output that people who are 100 steps ahead of you really is often times 100 times more." his rule of 100 is in our Hormozi post.

the tactic: decide what a fair test is before you start. a channel that failed at 300 has not been tested.

try this week: pick one channel. write down a test size (say 100 messages, 30 posts or 1,000 flyers) and how many buyers would count as working. do the whole batch before you change anything.

Freeman runs a large sales org and still prospects. on the captions: "Still to this day, I'm making cold calls. I'm sending at least five cold emails every single day." his reason: once leaders drift "further and further away from the customer," he says they stop being useful to their sellers. tactic 03 adds a buyer test: after a good call, ask them to bring their boss into the next one. if they won't, ask yourself: "Are you just window shopping?" the My First Million hosts tell a founder version: Ryan Hoover at Product Hunt spent his early mornings in a coffee shop replying by hand to people tweeting about products, and inviting them in.

the tactic: founders sell first, every day, in small numbers. five a day is 25 a week, and you hear every objection yourself.

try this week: block 30 minutes each morning. send five personal emails or DMs to named people who fit your buyer, each with one line about their situation. log every reply. when someone is keen, ask them to bring the person who signs off into the next call.