The first 10 users are the hardest. Not because they're rare — there are people out there right now with exactly the problem you solved — but because you haven't found each other yet.
Most advice on this topic assumes you have a marketing background, an email list, or a budget to run ads. You probably have none of those things. You spent your time building, which was the right call. But now you're staring at a working product with zero users, wondering if the whole thing was pointless.
It wasn't. You just need a different approach for this stage.
Here's what actually works for getting the first 10 users when you're starting from nothing.
Why 10 matters more than 100
There's a temptation to skip past 10 and aim directly for scale. Don't.
Your first 10 users will tell you things that no amount of analytics can. They'll find the parts of your product that don't make sense. They'll use it in ways you didn't expect. One of them will probably become your most vocal advocate, or your sharpest critic. Either is valuable.
With 10 real users, you also have something to say when the next person asks "who uses this?" That question feels impossible before your first 10. After it, you have an answer.
Start with people who already have the problem
Before you post anywhere, before you write anything, think about who in your life has the problem you solved.
Not "who might vaguely find this useful." Who is actively dealing with this right now?
Message them directly. Not an email blast — one message, specific to that person, explaining what you built and why you thought of them. This isn't marketing. It's just telling someone you built something they might care about.
The conversion rate on a warm, specific message is high. Higher than any public channel you'll use later. And these early users are the ones most likely to give you real feedback, because they know you and they care.
Start here. Get 2-3 users this way before you try anything else.
Find the communities where the problem lives
Your next 7 users are probably in a community somewhere — a subreddit, a Discord server, a Slack group, a Twitter/X thread — talking about the exact problem you solved.
The approach that works is not announcing your product. It's finding threads where people are complaining about or asking about your problem, and replying helpfully. At the end, you mention you built something for this. Or you don't even mention it — you just leave a link in your bio and let curious people find it.
This sounds slow. It is, a little. But the quality of users you get this way is completely different from anyone who clicked a generic ad. They found you because they were searching for their problem, and you had the most useful thing to say about it.
Reddit and Twitter/X are both worth your time here. Reddit for long-form problem discussions, Twitter/X for real-time reactions and building-in-public conversations.
The friction with this approach is time. You can spend an hour reading threads and find nothing relevant. That's where tools like VibeUsers help — it monitors Reddit and Twitter/X daily and surfaces threads where your product is relevant, so you can skip the searching and go straight to replying.
Related: Best subreddits for SaaS founders and indie makers →
Make it easy to try, hard to ignore
When someone lands on your product for the first time, they need to understand what it does in under ten seconds. Most early-stage products fail this test.
A quick way to check: send your landing page link to someone outside your industry. Someone who has no idea what your product does. Ask them to describe it back to you after 30 seconds. If they get it wrong or struggle, that's your sign.
The easier you make the first step, the more of your 10 will actually convert from "interested" to "using."
For the first 10, you can also just onboard them manually. Get on a call, walk them through the setup, ask what's confusing. This doesn't scale. That's fine. Right now you're not scaling, you're learning.
Post where new things are welcomed
There are communities built specifically for sharing things you've built. They're not where you'll find your best long-term users, but they're useful for an initial wave of attention.
r/SideProject, r/alphaandbetausers, r/mvplaunch, and Product Hunt's "upcoming" feature are all worth posting to once you're ready. So is a Show HN post on Hacker News if your product has a technical angle.
Don't expect these to produce 10 paying users. They tend to produce trial signups, feedback, and sometimes one or two people who stick around and genuinely care. That's still useful.
Build in public while you're doing all of this
The vibe coder who posts their build journey while they're looking for users has a compounding advantage. Every post about what you built, what's not working, what surprised you — that's content that attracts exactly the kind of person who might use your product.
This is a long game. But it starts early. If you're already doing the work of finding your first 10 users, you might as well document it. The audience you build while building is the audience you'll have when you find something worth announcing.
Twitter/X is the best platform for this right now. Short, honest updates outperform polished announcements every time with this crowd.
What not to do
Don't run ads yet. Before you have a conversion rate, ads tell you almost nothing useful. You need to know what message converts first — figure that out through conversations, not paid clicks.
Don't build more features. When you have zero users, it's tempting to think more features will help. They won't. The problem isn't the product. It's distribution.
Don't ask for too much too soon. Your first message to someone shouldn't include a payment link. The goal is to get them using the product, then convert them later once they've seen the value.
How VibeUsers fits into this
Finding the communities where your users already are is the right approach. The part that's hard is doing it consistently when you also have a product to maintain.
VibeUsers monitors Reddit and Twitter/X daily for threads where your product is genuinely relevant — posts where people are describing the exact problem you solve. You get a digest by email, you read it in ten minutes, and you go reply to the ones that matter. No account warming, no manual searching, no missed conversations because you were heads-down building.
The replies still come from you. That's the point.
Related: How to get your first users for your vibe-coded project → · How to launch a SaaS without a marketing budget →
FAQ
How long does it take to get the first 10 users?
For most solo builders, one to four weeks of consistent effort. The range is wide because it depends heavily on whether you start with warm contacts or go straight to cold communities. Starting with people who know you is almost always faster.
Should my first 10 users be paying?
It depends what you need to learn. If you need to validate that people will pay, then yes — aim for paid from the start, even if you offer a discount. If you need to validate that the product actually works for real people, free or a free trial is fine. Don't confuse free users with validation of willingness to pay.
What if nobody is interested?
Two possibilities. Either you haven't found where the people with this problem spend time online, or the problem isn't painful enough for people to switch to a new solution. Post in one or two relevant communities and pay close attention to the response. Silence or polite disinterest tells you something important.
Do I need a landing page before I look for users?
You need something people can land on that explains what the product does. It doesn't need to be polished. It needs to pass the ten-second test — can someone tell what this does and why it might help them? One page with a clear headline and a way to sign up is enough.
Is Product Hunt worth it for the first 10?
It can help, but don't rely on it. A Product Hunt launch gives you a one-day spike and then it's over. Some of those signups will stick, but the conversion from PH to long-term user is lower than from community-based discovery. Use it as one channel, not the main event.