I reached $1 million+ in revenue at Flexiple but getting the first customer was SO HARD.

21 lessons I’ve learned over 4 years that will help you get your first 10 customers👇
1/ In the early days, you can get customers in broadly two ways:

- Launch platforms like Product Hunt, ShowHN, etc.
- Using your personal network and leading a manual effort

We’ll get into the details in a bit.
2/ Using paid marketing early on is not a good idea.

It takes time to identify your typical target audience and without an accurate audience, paid marketing can effectively bankrupt your startup soon.
3/ Do invest in SEO early - writing articles, building your website’s authority, etc.

However, SEO is a long-term investment & takes time to grow and can’t be relied on for your first customers.

To know more about SEO, read this thread: .
4/ Customers bring more customers - by providing testimonials & case studies, referrals, etc.

So, don’t think of scale immediately - your goal initially is to use any method to get your first 10 customers.
5/ “Launch platforms” are a good place to gather momentum. However, it is a BIG error to solely depend on them.

They can be unreliable - “doing well” doesn’t guarantee customers and “doing poorly” doesn’t mean you can’t get customers elsewhere.
6/ Having said that, here’s a list of launch platforms, in three categories:

A. Pure launch platforms:
- @ProductHunt
- ShowHN
- @RemoteTools
- @BetaList
- @betafy

(contd.)
7/ Other platforms:

B. Communities
- Subreddits (Entrepreneur, Startups, Marketing, etc.)
- @IndieHackers
- @ThePracticalDev
- @hashnode

C. Social platforms (obvious)
- LinkedIn
- Twitter
8/ The ideal launch method deserves a thread to itself. However, here are some top points:

- Each platform has its best practices. Don’t try a one-size-fits-all approach

- Coordinate your launch across platforms such that they feed off of each other

(contd.)
9/ Ideal launch method (contd.)

- Most communities are strict, so try to add value by starting a conversation or sharing an experience rather than generically spamming

I’ve expanded a bit more on these aspects in this thread:
10/ Now, the personal network outreach.

Most guides & experts don’t talk about this, maybe because it has “manual effort” involved.

However, it is possibly the most reliable method in your early days.
11/ Here’s why personal network is the best in your early days:

- They have more reason to “help”
- There is inherently more trust in you and what you make
- Well, you have a greater chance of them answering your mail/ call
12/ LinkedIn is the best way to leverage your network.

The fact that you can identify the exact people who can put you in touch with the right person in the right company is priceless.

But, let’s break this down into a replicable process.
13/ 1st step: Make a list of all companies you would like as your clients.

Let’s say your target audience is startups, use a database like @crunchbase to shortlist relevant companies.

This could be based on recently funded startups, etc.
14/ 2nd step: Search for those startups on LinkedIn and see if you have a 1st or 2nd-level connect in them.

LinkedIn offers a 1-month free trial on premium - you get a FREE way to see if this channel works for you.
15/ 3rd step: Reaching out to them

- If your connects are active on LinkedIn (for e.g. 500+ connections) reach out on LinkedIn

- Don't pitch your product directly. Start with a common past/interest

- Then organically suggest why you think your startup could be useful to them
16/ 3rd step: alternate route

If they aren't active on LinkedIn, reach out on mail.

- LinkedIn provides emails of many of your connects

- Don't "over-pitch" on mail. Rather try to get connected to the right PoC
17/ Now, try gathering as much information on how your product/service help them, write a mail to them describing the same.

- No mass mails === 100% personalisation.

To understand in greater detail, do read this thread:
18/ Keep continuing this process from one potential client to the next.

Key to note in such conversations is to understand which points clients resonate with. This allows you to:

- Use it in conversations with future clients
- To also tweak your website copy accordingly!
19/ You will land your first customer, but that's just the beginning :)

Ensure, that you learn what worked for them & what didn't.

A success would mean:
- A referral
- A testimonial
- A case study

Hitting the trifecta would be perfect!
20/ In your next conversations with potential clients, highlight the positive experience of your existing customer.

=> No feature explanation can outdo the positive affirmation of a happy paying client!
21/ Finally, keep adding relevant client logos & other "social proof" to the very top section of your website.

This will help your initial manual efforts yield solid results in other channels too!
That's it for this thread!

If you would like to see more such threads - retweet the first tweet 👇 & do follow me :)

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More from @KarthikS2206

25 Mar
21 lessons in SEO after growing Flexiple’s organic traffic from 4,000 to 40,000 in 6 months & revenue from 0 to $1mn 🧵
1/ SEO is the most reliable channel of traffic & arguably also leads.

With ~6 billion+ searches occurring each day, ignoring SEO is a very grave error by any marketer - don't make that mistake.
2/ SEO is also a great validator of your startup idea! 

If search phrases related to your idea actually have volume, it naturally indicates that there is a market for your offering.
Read 23 tweets
4 Mar
SimpleSEO #3: Today, let's talk about Domain Authority (DA)!

- Google doesn't publicly share any "reputation score" of a website

- So, two companies @SEOmoz and @ahrefs share their interpretation of your website's credibility

👉🏽Note that this isn't endorsed by Google

Contd.👇🏽
2 of 3/

- It is a score out of 100 and is on a logarithmic scale => going from 20 to 21 is tougher than 10 to 11

- Getting backlinks from other quality websites improves DA

- If you've a new website OR haven't focused much on SEO, it is likely to be low (<30)

Contd.👇🏽
3 of 3/

- While unofficial, DA still reflects how difficult it is for you to rank for any keyword => Lower the DA tougher it is

- So, apart from writing content, you should focus on increasing DA

How? That's for the next thread!
Read 4 tweets
3 Mar
With 500+ likes & 100+ comments, it's clear that I should document the stories & lessons of growing Flexiple to $1mn!

So, in this tweet thread, I’ve outlined the 13 chapters (among others) that I plan to cover in the course & notion template.

Let’s go👇🏽

1/ Idea validation

Outline📘

- Finding the closest way to mimic your ultimate customer offering

- The plan is to invest the least amount of money or build minimally (ideally nothing), yet get a sense of the market

👉🏽 Also, a write-up of top case studies
2/ Finding a co-founder

Outline📘

- A co-founder isn’t necessary but very helpful

- Aligning on the “right” personality & the expectations you have of them is critical

👉🏽 I’ll also share my experience of finding my co-founders
Read 15 tweets
24 Feb
SimpleSEO #2:

SEO intimidates many!

In 8 tweets, I'll explain SEO using the analogy of a LIBRARY.

The characters:
👩🏽Librarian = Google
📘Books = All websites
🧔🏽Person searching for a book = Your potential customer

I'll connect it all in the end 🚀

Come on, let's go! Thread👇🏽
1/ Potential customer searches Google

This is equivalent to the person coming to the librarian and asking her to suggest the most relevant book on say "Photosynthesis" ('cause I'm a nerd😅).
2/ Google prepares the search results

The librarian now has to decide which books to recommend from a sea of books.

So, she does this by setting certain parameters to rank the various books.

Which parameters? 👇🏽
Read 10 tweets
22 Feb
How did we make $100k using GoogleSheets after 2 failed products?

Many asked me this. So, in 14 tweets, I cover Flexiple’s 1st year comprising:
- Product 1 & its failure
- Product 2 & its failure
- What went wrong
- Why/how GoogleSheets worked

Thread👇🏽

1 of 14/ Premise for Product 1

Our idea was simple: Connecting pre-vetted tech talent with companies.

Like most new entrepreneurs, we wanted to build for scale.

Manual processes just seemed foolish to us, so we decided that building a product was the answer.
2 of 14/ What was Product 1

The product would:

- Manage the entire onboarding flow of freelancers including tests, evaluations, interview scheduling, etc.

- Allow clients to share their requirements in a predictive fashion (just if-else conditions :P)

(contd.)
Read 16 tweets
25 Jan
SEO traffic increased 5x for Flexiple from July to December.

Here’s the 8 step framework I defined to achieve that, explained in step-by-step detail.

The only tools that we use are:
- @ahrefs
- Google sheets

So, let's get started 👇🏽
Step 1/

- Type a relevant industry keyword in @ahrefs' keyword explorer tab

- Keep the keyword short - NOT long-tail

- At this stage, you are just defining the kind of articles you want to write

- For e.g. If I want to write tech articles, I'd just search "Javascript" Image
Step 2/

- This is simple - go to the "Having same terms" tab

- You will get all results which have your keyword phrase in it

- For our e.g., "Javascript" will be included each time

- You can go back to Step 1 if you think the keywords are out of whack Image
Read 13 tweets

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