What are the best channels to acquire your first 100 customers?

Reading an article about the best channels to find your first 100 customers might give you ideas but brings you no closer to knowing. You need a deep understanding of who your customers are, and through the process of getting to know them, you need to understand not just where they spend time and can be found, but when they can be found at the right time for marketing your product. Most lists of marketing channels will include Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, etc., but it might be that your customers think most about your solution (or their problem), as they are leaving their child's daycare or taking their elderly parent to the doctor. It's important to remember that a "marketing channel" can be any place where your customers are.

⤵Understand your ideal customers and their needs. ⤵Create customer personas and segment your target market. ⤵Tailor your messaging and positioning accordingly.

Short answer: any way you can get them. Cold emailing, LinkedIn, word of mouth, your network, etc. Slightly less short answer: meet customers where they are. In my case, if I'm selling my financial projections tool to founders, I'm not going to find them at finance conferences. Instead, they're at in-person community events, on LinkedIn/Twitter/Reddit etc.

0-100 customers need to be broken down into steps. 0-10 customers you’re still determining a market fit, assuming we’re talking about B2B, and those are usually internal exec connections, outbound pitches or experimentation landing pages testing demand. Your next 10-50 are leaning into a channel that worked with first 10, delivering your best customers and trying to replicate them. At this point you can start confirming ICP and looking for the look alikes. Then establishing base channels - organic with targeted content around unique problems you solve, 1-2 industry events if they are a good fit in terms of audience and budget, (30-50+) paid experiments aligned with outbound outreach to see the messaging/offers with best response.

Choosing a channel that works best for your business will always be exclusive because your target audience will always be different from other businesses. In my experience I have found Facebook as a platform which helped me get my first 100 customers.

1) Google, Search Engine of your choice - this was what helped me build a pipeline of over 700+ clients in less than a year, without a database. You'll be surprised what you can find with the proper key words. 2) Free trials, free access to the software helps build that trust. 3) As mentioned before, building a relationship is absolutely crucial. This leads to referrals and positive customer experiences becomes a chain reaction. 4) Utilize e-mails, customize templates to save time but prioritize personal e-mails for important contacts. 5) LinkedIn; social media; YouTube, Streaming sites -- these are all free ways to expand. These are great ways to grab interest and increase awareness. 6) Professional Forums based on industry.

When acquiring your first customers, you’ve got to factor in audience size, accessibility, cost, and conversion rates of each channel. Referrals are gold—high trust, low cost, and you can incentivize them with rewards or free features. We’ve seen this work wonders, especially when referrals are paired with discounts. Content marketing helps attract and educate early users, while email marketing personalizes outreach. Social media builds community and engagement, and paid ads allow for targeted reach. Dropbox used referrals, and Airbnb leveraged content and social media to great effect. Keep it scrappy but strategic!

As an early-stage startup, you have limited time, money, and resources so choose your channels and efforts well! 1. Leverage referrals by incentivizing existing customers to recommend you. 2. Produce engaging content that educates and converts potential customers. 3. Use email marketing to segment and personalize messages to prospects. 4. Run cost-effective ads to reach targeted audiences at scale. 5. Test channels to determine which provide the highest conversion rates and retention. Pursue multi-channel strategies, but focus spending on the channels with the best metrics. Referrals and content marketing are affordable starting points, while paid ads can accelerate growth once you find product-market fit.

I started by testing different types of content: educational posts, success stories from my courses, and insights into startup growth. Monitoring engagement metrics like views, likes, and comments helped me understand what resonated with my audience. I refined my content strategy based on these insights, optimizing my posts for higher engagement and lead generation.

Testing and optimizing your channels is essential for discovering your first 100 customers because it allows you to refine your marketing strategies based on real-time data and insights. By monitoring and analyzing the performance of each channel, you can identify which ones are driving the most results and focus your efforts on those. Additionally, testing different messaging, visuals, targeting parameters, and calls-to-action within each channel helps you understand what resonates best with your audience and generates the highest conversion rates. By continuously optimizing your channels based on data-driven learnings, you can increase the efficiency and effectiveness of your customer acquisition efforts

- Deploy tracking pixels to monitor engagement. - Analyze metrics like cost per conversion, lifetime value per channel. - Run A/B tests on landing pages and ads to increase signups. - Diversify message themes and segments. - Optimizing early acquisition channels establishes momentum and scalable funnels.

The hardest part about testing for an early-stage startup is the inadequate data. When you are testing any hypothesis, your sample size needs to be representative and the data you receive should be accurate and adequate, right? But if you are just building a venture, you experience the problem of Cold Start. No users, no reviews, no trial sign-ups. Nothing at all. So what are you going to do? You need to rely on your hunch when you are deciding on your first customer acquisition channel. For this, you need to be able to understand the affiliations of your target customers. Where can you find the MOST of these people? On Instagram, on LinkedIN, on Tiktok, in industry events, on university campuses? Decide and go out to look for them.

As you scale your customer base, it’s critical to expand and diversify your channels strategically. Scaling can mean increasing your budget, expanding reach, or optimizing efficiency within existing channels. At the same time, diversifying means tapping into new segments, adding fresh channels, or even cross-promoting to leverage different audiences. For example, I’ve seen companies move from simple social ads to influencer partnerships and podcasts as they grow. The key is constant monitoring—adjust based on data, feedback, and shifting goals to ensure sustained growth.

As my presence on LinkedIn grew, I expanded my activities. I began participating in relevant groups and hosting webinars and live Q&A sessions. This not only increased my visibility but also established me as a thought leader in language education and startup consulting.

It's simple, you need to have your SOM in mind and know your target REALLY well. Understanding the specific segment of the market that you can realistically reach and serve is the key. This allows you to personalize your acquisition channels to effectively resonate with and capture the attention of your ideal customers. It's not about quantity, but rather honing in on the audience that is most likely to find value in what you're offering.

In the past, I have seen 'feedback groups' being used to good effect. Essentially, these are early customers from a wide cohort of backgrounds, who get early access to new products/features and provide consistent feedback on their experience. The key here is to ensure that you are not including people that will simply tell you what you want to hear, and even more importantly, that you act on the feedback you're receiving.

The feedback and interactions on LinkedIn were invaluable for continuous learning. I iterated my course content and consulting services based on the discussions and trends I observed on the platform. Keeping up with LinkedIn's evolving features and algorithms also helped me stay ahead in effectively reaching and engaging my audience.

There's no universal "best" channel—only the best for you. Start by listing where your customers hang out. X? Facebook? Conferences? Rank these places on two factors: where you'll reach them best, and how easy it is to engage there. Your sweet spot is where "easy to do" and "customers are there" overlap—start there. Test, iterate, and if it works, double down. If not, move on. Remember, if there was an easy shortcut, everyone would use it. The key is knowing your audience, being strategic, and adapting based on results. Don't fall for one-size-fits-all advice—your path to those first 100 customers is unique to your business.

Think outside the box: sometimes you can get your audience in very unexpected places. Think what steps your target audience takes before arriving at the location you want to 'hunt' them – and jump on platforms they perform these steps on. Use the likes of perplexity to identify those steps and find out the platforms.

Kicking off your startup's journey by acquiring the first 100 customers demands smart strategy and genuine engagement. Start with Content Marketing and SEO to boost visibility. Use Social Media for direct engagement, creating a community around your brand. Email Marketing personalizes your outreach, nurturing leads into customers. Networking Events and Meetups offer invaluable face-to-face opportunities, while Referral Programs turn existing users into brand ambassadors. Don't overlook Direct Sales and Cold Outreach for proactive customer acquisition. Incorporate your Friends, Family, and Fools (FFF); they're your initial supporters and word-of-mouth promoters. This mix of digital savvy and personal touch lays a strong foundation for growth

Anyone reading this article needs to understand that this is INSANELY nuanced, and an entire book would struggle to answer this adequately. Are you selling a new sports drink for kids? Go to a soccer complex on a Saturday morning and voila. But you're probably not going to get very far trying to sell accounting software to sweaty 8-year olds and their parents. There isn't a "best" answer without context. Your product or service, your ideal customer and their habits/demographics, your price point, and your level of commitment required from the customer are all critical in determining the "best" channels, and that's not even getting into YOUR business aspects, like your availability of funding and your access to prospective customers.

Building a strong personal brand on LinkedIn was crucial. I shared my journey and experiences, which helped in creating a more relatable and trustworthy image. Engaging regularly with my connections through thoughtful comments and messages fostered stronger relationships. Additionally, leveraging LinkedIn Ads with targeted campaigns further amplified my reach to potential customers.