How To Get Your First 1000 Customers (Behind The Scenes)

In this video, I am going to share how to get your first 1000 users in 1 month. Too many people overcomplicate this process; There are a few simple, tried and true strategies for scaling to 1000 and beyond.

==Resources==

Top Takeaways:
✅ Hand to hand marketing - is the name of the game in the early days
✅"Buffet Marketing" (More experiments the better) -- and trust that some things will work later if not now
✅ Ship early, it's ok to be embarrassed
✅ Marketing "hacks" won't fix a bad product

There’s SO many new cool products being created daily and NO great way to find them. The only channel to find them are influencers or Instagram ads. That's why we launched HaulDrop.

Now you may think we have this large customer base so we just blast 1 email and everyone comes running. I WISH. It’s almost never the case. We launched a similar thing last year sumo-market and barely anyone came. This time we changed up how we are promoting products.

A few things to note in the marketing plan above:

We didn’t leverage Producthunt which we should in the future. It’s a great place to launch any new business.

We didn’t buy ads yet. We are paying for the giveaway items(it’s a less slippery slope than paying the Facebook overlords). If the giveaways become MORE than $1 / signup we’ll pull back AND we are asking companies to give the products for free most of the time

Marketing is all about when you HAVE something people WANT. There’s NO site or way to find dope products online, if there was then there would be no need to create HaulDrop.

A few more of the strategies we tried to get our first customers:

-Forced registration. Made it so you have to register to view a product from the homepage (think like Facebook homepage is a registration form)
-Discount codes. Asked companies for discount codes and made people register to get tthem. Threw on a timer for urgency.
-Streaks. Created streaks so people want to come back
-Submission promotion. When a person submits the product we then motivate them to promote the product to their network.
-Company & User Loops

Getting customers is simply a matter of understanding what stage you're at and really doubling down on what's working.

[noahkagan]

For next growth video -- what do you want to see? What questions do you have about scaling?

[nipunchoudhary]

Loved the stage by stage break down of the user growth:
0-50 at 1:13
50-100 at 2:06
100-500 at 3:56
500-1000 at 8:34

I know I am going to watch this multiple times.

@Noah yes, growth series is going to be awesome!

[RealAmarSheth]

Noah: the editing, branding, etc. are off the hook. Also, the insights are super valuable!

[EltonAndersonJr]

This was informative. Especially the be embarrassed part! Get over the ego and start building a feedback loop! Love this

[AlexRechevskiy]

Yes for growth videos!! Thanks, Noah!

[rjyoungling]

Can't wait until you have millions of subs homey! #underdogs

[rjyoungling]

Ridiculously good video!

Also, for other people in the early stages, go meet your users! You'll never have that chance again once you get big. The ability to talk to every single user helps you with iteration and making the product better, but also just developing a better understanding of your audience and the exact problem your product solves for them.

[kusty]

Sweet vid, Noah! I'm right at the crossroads of "is it a marketing problem or is it a business problem". Perfect timing to be reminded again to just get it out there and see what the customers say

[meganamehere]

Noah you rock. I've been. follower/fan for 8 years. I learned half of what i know in marketing from you

[MattRossOfficial]

I'm immensely grateful that you made this video Noah, thank you!

[benedegrees]

I just cracked up laughing with the Steve Jobs Meme! 😅😂😂 awesome video awesome content, thanks Noah

[nataliefisetm.d.]

Your videos are loaded with great ideas! I love your way of presenting what worked and what didn't work .Facebook's loss is our gain!😀

[marianaruiz]

Omg love this video!!! Re watching to take more notes! Also yes to growth serries! Thank you Noah.

[parkerrex]

Noah this is great. Going to take some more hand to hand combat into play

[patrickreaport]

Giving so much value for no money in return. any question i have about business i search your name for it. You are someone i aspire to be like. quick thinking, quick doing, practical. good video noah kagan

[treasurerose]

Great video so far, excited to see more growth videos
Thanks!

[Mipon_en]

Many people talk about this topic, but always no one talks about "how to contact potential clients(email template, etc)" "how to negotiate with potential clients", "what to do if they say no? follow up?" etc. It would fantastic if you cover those kinds of topics.

[marjacu]

1:17 Aici îi vom reține! Aici vom lupta!
Haha, that part of the video made my day

[overcomeego]

hey just dropping some love, I appreciate your content.

[manfrednlisayew]

One by one growth for below 50 is super actionable. I got one today, (win!) and a few possibilities down the track. Thanks for doing what you do.