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ProductStrategy · 5 min read
The first 10 users problem
Most product advice assumes you already have product-market fit. The truly hard part, finding your first 10 real users, gets surprisingly little attention.
Founders read playbooks for getting from 100 customers to 1,000. The harder problem, and the one that determines whether your product ever exists, is going from 0 to 10 users who would pay for what you’re building.
Why it’s so hard
No social proof, no word of mouth, no SEO foothold, no case studies. You have to manufacture the conversation. Cold outreach feels desperate. Communities don’t trust you yet. And the product probably isn’t good enough yet to defend itself.
What actually works
- Pick 50 specific people who would be ideal, by name.
- Find one thing they’d find genuinely interesting and send it.
- Talk to them about their problem, not your product.
- Build the product they describe, not the one you originally pitched.
The first 10 users teach you what the next 10,000 will buy.