You built a product. Wrote the code, launched it, sitting there waiting. Silence. Zero sales. Sound familiar?
I've been through this. And now I'll tell you what I usually do when I launch products and when these kinds of questions come up. Let's go.
The harsh truth is that creating a product doesn't get us closer to earning. What gets us closer: traffic, sales, landing pages, nice pages, videos, and more. Notice — to create all of this, we don't even need the product.
Unfortunately, building a product doesn't somehow bring us as businessmen any closer to making money. What brings us closer: traffic, sales, landing pages, nice-looking pages, videos, and so on. And notice — we don't even need a product to create any of that.
But nevertheless, people build products. And maybe that's right — it has value. But now we need to figure out where to get traffic for the first users, what to write, and what to do.
Let's take a step back to understand the general state of the playing field. Because hammering away at the question "where to get clients" — well, it's stupid. You don't understand at all. A beginner solo founder — he might not understand where clients are generated from.
We need to turn this from a black hole into something more or less coherent.
We are here for the money. We need to exchange our time for effort that our users will eventually value — and start paying us money for. That's the mantra. Always move toward the money.
On the other side of the product, our users are most likely completely random people. You should call them an audience. The audience needs to be counted.
Audience = people who made their first payment this month in the market you're participating in.You need to understand this number. These are the people — the ones you'll be selling to.
Obviously, the number of people who will buy in six months is many times larger than those who will buy this month. But we're a startup — we want to test fast. So we focus only on people who will buy this month. That's the first number you need to calculate.
We've figured it out — most likely the number will be either very small or very large. Both are good. Based on this number, you can start picking free marketing tools.
The maximum possible volume of clients should grow because new people reach the age where your product is needed. But that's background information. What matters is those who are buying this month.
When you cosplay the client — you start seeing through the eyes of the person who should buy your product. And that's when the picture of how this market is structured starts to emerge.
Look for entry points in social media. Instagram and so on. Look for bloggers who advertise similar products to a broad audience. Look through competitor hashtags — what posts, what they write. Maybe everything will become clear.
Search engines — Google is your friend. Google gives you the average slice of any domain. In the search results you'll encounter your potential sales channels: contextual advertising if your financial model allows it, rankings, third-opinion sites.
Third-opinion sites — rankings, reviews, alternatives. This is very important. The site needs to say that you're not bullshit. There will be some influencers, links to them. Looking through these platforms does this magical thing — it shows where transactions happen in the market.
These guys don't need to attract traffic. Most likely they just need to search for contacts in the market. Forget about the product and just go talk to people. Use AI to find everyone's contacts and offer them a meeting. Say that you're an expert in this market, you know everything, and you're so fucking good that they have to reckon with you.
This might look naive and stupid. But if you write to the entire market with an offer to connect and nobody wants to talk — that's a red flag. It means there's no room for newcomers in this market. Because in a complex, large, competitive market, everyone is forced to adapt and react to incoming messages — nobody wants to lose everything.
Afraid to write to strangers, afraid to look bad, or simply never done it, or expect incredible consequences from a single message. This gets in the way massively. By this, you're forbidding yourself from launching startups and attracting users.
The universal introductory mindset:
We have the right to take people's time through marketing. We have every right to spend a few minutes, hours, maybe even days of another person's time on viewing our marketing materials. The goal is one thing — convert. Get rid of the fucking thoughts about "what will people think." Just think about it later. After 500 sends, ask yourself the question "what did people think." The answer will be very simple: no one cares. Most likely nobody even noticed you. And those 10 contacts who did notice — got interested, a dialogue happened, and some arrangements were made.Forget all your life principles. Accept that we need the logic of a virus — one that doesn't ask questions, just copies and replicates further. I don't mean that we go through contacts like a machine sending the same message 100 times to 100 different people. That's genuinely what needs to be done. And here, the person gets in their own way first and foremost.
Put on the mask of a machine. The machine knows that today it needs to make 100 sends to relevant users. The machine will do it. That's it.Take a pseudonym. Under a pseudonym, everything gets done a thousand times faster than under real personal data if you're truly scared.
Marketing is math. You invest yourself in the product. You invest yourself in the content. But not in delivery. You don't invest in delivery. All these emotions — irrelevant.
In marketing, there is a number. 50.
50 communications per day. That's a thousand per month with 21 working days. On a regular startup schedule of 5/2 — consistently.
What counts as 50: 15 emails, 15 Telegram messages, 20 dictated posts or calls.
50 is the average norm, not the maximum level. You just need to learn how to build it into your life.
Why hasn't anyone come to me? Most likely because you're not doing anything for anyone to come.
As humans, we have our own unique set of beliefs, speech patterns, vocabulary. The problem is that you sell to yourself perfectly — because you know yourself. But we can't know our audience thoroughly. There are no technologies yet to copy another person's consciousness.
So we will be blind. Segments at the start are a complete unknown, pitch-black chaos. You have to solve a problem that is clear to everyone: to grandma, to a child, to any person.
Blindness is needed so you don't play roulette. When you think you've come up with a unique style or a unique idea — you're playing roulette with a 99% chance of losing. That's how the world works. One old acquaintance will appreciate it, the rest won't give a shit.It's important to be understandable. Don't use complex speech constructions. Don't think that your product only sells to right-handed people or only to business owners. You need universality, simplicity, and clarity. Basic vocabulary.
Blindness is needed so you don't hand out judgments. The only honest and professional way to evaluate marketing is to look at reports. How much traffic came, how many clients, how many actions were taken. There is no blindness here.In style, speech, phrasing — blindness exists. This means accepting that your hypotheses are just little windows. You will need data. Being data-oriented means: remove bias, remove personal judgment. This is a tool that requires regular sharpening. You need to start right now — every month it will become more conscious.
The cheapest way at the start to get clients — and at the same time the most expensive in time — is to put out content.
Note: AI translates and stamps out text. The whole world is rolling toward everyone wanting to put out AI content. But it's sludge that AI itself doesn't need for indexing in the first place.
Use new ways of putting out content. For example, voice messages → text. I'm writing this message through voice messages right now. With simple tools, set yourself up so you put out content on all platforms where your audience is: Reddit — okay Reddit, Quora — okay Quora, something else — okay.
Record voice messages and put out content. Minimum one month, minimum 60 pieces. Wait for results for at least three months. Such a portion of unique content recorded personally by you — this is living flesh that all search engines chase after. This content needs to sit and eventually hit somewhere.
If you put out 90 pieces of content in a month on platforms that give free traffic and got nothing — that's another red flag. Maybe it's worth thinking not about how you're doing something wrong or don't know how to promote, but about the fact that the audience simply doesn't exist. Or it's inactive — everyone already bought long ago or has no interest, you can't convert them right now.When you have no users — you need at least one. Look at intermediate actions.
Following the 50 communications per day rule: 250 communications per week.You don't have to immediately look at money. Look at weak signals that say there's interest, views, reactions.
We never know how much time and effort it will take to attract the first paying user. This user will most likely cost hundreds of hours of marketing.
At the start, it seemed like 100% of the time should go into building the product, and after that traffic would appear. But behind the conquered peak of "build the product," a second peak appears — one not yet climbed. That's marketing.
Spend at least as much time on marketing as you spent on development. Then you can evaluate something.Find where your clients hang out. Look on Instagram, Google, forums. Didn't find them — the market might not exist. Found them — start publishing content. Minimum 2 pieces per day, minimum 3 months.
How long to wait for first sales?Nobody knows. Rule: spend as many hours on marketing as you spent on development. After that, you can evaluate.
Sent 100 messages — 0 responses. What do I do?Send another 150. 250 is the minimum sample. 250 and 0 responses — the product doesn't solve a problem. 250 and 5-10 responses — dig there.
Hire a marketer or do it myself?At the start, only yourself. You know the product best. A hired marketer hasn't lived this pain. Hiring — only when you already have a working system and first sales.
How to tell if the problem is the product and not the marketing?500+ touches and 0 signals. Bloggers refuse to even try it for free. Users who tried don't come back. All three signs — the problem is the product.