How to Find Early Users When You Have Zero Audience

You do not need a huge audience. You need a narrow who and a repeatable way to talk to them.

This post focuses on finding early users through real conversations—Reddit, Hacker News, Slacks, and forums—because that is where intent language shows up before people know your brand exists. For the full Reddit + HN workflow, use How to Find Customers from Reddit & Hacker News. To run scans across platforms with scoring and attribution, see Blueprinto.

Step 1: Write one sentence about who is not for you

Early user search goes wrong when you say "everyone who needs productivity." Instead:

• "Indie SaaS founders shipping solo who hate CRM bloat."
• "Dev teams under 20 on AWS who need X."

That sentence becomes your filter for threads, intros, and copy.

Step 2: Fish where they ask questions

Spend time in:

• Ask HN threads that match your category.
• Subreddits where your ICP compares tools (see Reddit leads for SaaS).
• Slack/Discord groups that allow honest tool talk (read rules first).

Your goal is not virality. It is ten real conversations with people who have the problem this quarter.

Step 3: Offer a sharp slice of help

Early users respond to specificity:

• "Here is how we solved Y without Z."
• "If your constraint is A, start with B; if it is C, avoid D."

Then—only if true—mention what you built and invite them to try or give feedback.

Step 4: One loop per week

• 5 discovery touches (DM, reply, intro).
• 3 follow-ups from last week.
• 1 improvement to onboarding or positioning based on what you heard.

Repeat for eight weeks before deciding the channel "does not work."

When to add tooling

When you are consistent manually but losing hours to tabs and search, use a system to surface and prioritize threads. Blueprinto targets that stage: same discipline, less thrash.

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Links: Home · Pillar guide · First 10 users