How we got Typedream’s first 1,000 customers

How did we get our first 1,000 customers? By doing things that don't scale, as advised by @ycombinator 🤹‍♀️🧵

1. First 10 users: Manual recruiting

Our initial target market was those who built their websites on Notion.

Therefore, we decided to rebuild their sites using Typedream and asked them if they would like to claim their websites.

Rebuilding people's sites was definitely NOT scalable but we automated it a while later by building templates.

2. 50-100 users: On the spot setup

We started #buildinginpublic on Twitter and opened our waitlist via Product Hunt ship.

Other founders: "Will you try our beta?" "Great, we'll send you a link!" Typedream: "Hop on a call with us and let's build your website together!"

Sure, onboarding our waitlists 1-by-1 was not scalable, but it was very beneficial:

• Less drop-off compared to simply sending people a link to our beta and asking them to try it themselves
• A LOT of feedback because we get to see them interacting with our product, live

3. 100-500 users: Delight our users

One of the mistakes we did with our previous startups was that we were trained as engineers so customer service was not part of our efforts.

We avoided this mistake. With Typedream, we provided a level of service no big company can.

4. 500 - 1,000 users: @ProductHunt launch

Once we'd gone through enough iteration and finally had a shippable product, we didn't hesitate to launch 🚀