How to Get Your First 10 Customers

Predictions and Expectations:

• Max expects that customers one through three will almost always come from the personal network, stating "there were basically no counter examples to this pattern."
• Max predicts that for customers four through 10, acquisition will come from "doing things that don't scale," such as flying to customers, sending Reddit DMs, or hosting small dinners.
• Max expects that once a startup reaches customers 10 through 50, the playbook will shift to using higher volume outreach tools like Apollo, Clay, and email sequences.
• Max believes that founders who personally perform manual outreach for the first 10 customers will gain an advantage because it signals they care enough about the problem, a trait established companies cannot easily fake.
• Max expects that tools and automation will "only start to matter once you have 10 to 20 quality customers."
• Max predicts that showing up in person (e.g., flying to meet a buyer) often works better than other tactics, citing examples where persistence led to closing deals despite rescheduling or initial rejection.
• Max expects that for consumer products or small business products, founders will find their customers in online communities where complaints are made, specifically noting Reddit, Facebook groups, Discord, or YouTube comments.
• Max predicts that the work done on Reddit will persist and continue to pay off for a long time because "threads get pulled into Google search and persist for years."

Timelines and Milestones:

• Max suggests founders should spend "an hour" sitting down to answer basic questions about their buyer before taking any other action.
• Max notes a specific founder flew to a single executive buyer "four weeks in a row" to eventually close a deal.
• Max advises following up "three or four times over a couple of weeks" for cold outreach.
• Max recommends spending "two to five posts a day" for a couple of months on platforms like Reddit and Facebook for a healthcare founder's specific strategy.
• Max states that AI-powered network search tools like Happenstance can surface relevant people from a wider net than what a founder can "scroll through manually."

Technology and Product Direction:

• Max suggests that "a few weeks ago" he made a post on Bookface, which led to dozens of founders responding and sharing their experiences for this video compilation.
• Max expects that AI-powered network search tools will help founders find people they don't know personally by searching "across your whole extended network in natural language."
• Max indicates that for B2B niches, industry-specific forums or trade association message boards may be the place where pain is expressed publicly.
• Max suggests that founders can use AI to "build research and enrichment workflows" on top of a prospect list, particularly for qualifying leads on specific criteria like software usage or hiring activity.

Market and Industry Outlook:

• Max expects that for buyers who are sales leaders, email and LinkedIn outreach "actually make a lot of sense" because they spend a ton of time on a computer.
• Max predicts that for buyers like school district administrators, property managers, insurance agents, or truck dispatchers, cold email and LinkedIn outreach will likely fail because they do not sit on a laptop all day.
• Max expects that small conferences can have a much higher conversion rate than cold emailing the same person, particularly for industry-specific audiences.
• Max notes that founders who run founder dinners or happy hours with "six to ten people" for "fifty to a hundred dollars a head" often find this converts better than large events.
• Max believes that offering free value upfront (like a vulnerability scan or audit note) can yield high conversion rates for outreach, especially in markets with high contract values.

Company Plans:

• Max plans to share a compilation of learnings from dozens of YC founders who responded to an internal post about getting their first 10 customers.
• Max advises founders to "work your network" through personal connections, second-degree LinkedIn connections, and AI search tools before using outbound prospecting tools.
• Max suggests that founders should frame early outreach as asking for advice, mentorship, or a product review rather than a direct sales pitch to open a door.
• Max expects that founders should offer specific, high-effort value (e.g., 20 minutes of work before asking for 30 minutes of someone's time) to secure initial meetings.
• Max recommends that founders maximize conference time by setting up 15-minute slots back-to-back and emailing the attendee list multiple times before and during the event.
• Max expects that founders should avoid "refining subject lines or email copy" for months if they are selling to buyers who are not on email, as that time is better spent meeting customers in person.

Financial Guidance:

• Max notes that one founder paid lawyers "$100 to $200 an hour" for product feedback, and while the math seemed expensive, the customer acquisition cost ended up being "quite reasonable" due to high conversion.
• Max mentions that for founder dinners, the cost is typically "fifty to a hundred dollars a head."

Risks and Caveats:

• Max warns that founders who spend "weeks setting up outreach tools" without first messaging their second-degree connections are skipping the "lowest hanging fruit."
• Max cautions that founders will get "shadow banned from a few subreddits" if they aggressively respond to complaints.
• Max notes that the tactic of doing personalized work for every prospect is "not sustainable at scale," but that is not the goal for the first 10 customers.
• Max warns that if a founder is not genuinely open to learning when asking for advice or mentorship, they are "misleading people" and should not do it.
• Max states that long emails tend to get ignored because recipients assume they were written by an LLM.

Confidence and Disagreement:

• Max states with high confidence that "customers one through three almost always come from your personal network," citing "basically no counter examples" in his survey.
• Max expects that the "messy middle phase" from 4 to 10 customers works because the founder is personally involved, noting it is "a really good way to learn before you automate."
• Max is not sure about the exact effectiveness of cold email for every scenario but asserts it works fine for specific buyers like sales leaders.
• Max expresses uncertainty about tool adoption, stating that "prospect tools only start to matter once you have 10 to 20 quality customers," implying they are premature for fewer customers.