firstthousandusers
  1. Idea and validation
  2. Waitlist
  3. Private beta
  4. Launch
  5. First 100 users
  6. First 1,000 users
Communities

Find where your users already talk

List the subreddits, forums, Discord servers and Slack groups where your users ask questions, and read them for a week before posting.

What's requiredTwo to three hours to build the list, then 15–20 minutes a day for a week of reading.
Accounts
Reddit, Discord, and whatever platform your users use (Slack, LinkedIn, Facebook, a forum).
Assets
A spreadsheet with columns for place, link, size, activity, rules and notes.
Time
Two to three hours to build the list, then 15–20 minutes a day for a week of reading.
Cost
Free.
Prerequisites
A clear idea of who your user is and a few words they use for the problem.

What to do

  1. List the words your users use, not your product words. Their job title, the tools they use, the problem in their phrasing, and your competitors’ names. You will search with these, so five to ten terms is enough.
  2. Search Reddit through Google, not Reddit’s own search. Google finds older and better threads. Try:
    • site:reddit.com [problem phrase]
    • site:reddit.com "how do you" [task]
    • site:reddit.com [competitor] alternative
    • site:reddit.com "is there a tool" [task] Note which subreddits keep appearing. Those, not the biggest general ones, are where your users are.
  3. Find the Discord and Slack groups. Search Google for [niche] discord server, [niche] slack community and "join our slack" [role]. Also look at the websites and newsletters of tools your users already use; many link to a community. Directories like Disboard list public Discord servers by tag.
  4. Check Facebook and LinkedIn groups for less technical users. Local business owners, teachers, agencies, real estate and trades often talk in Facebook groups rather than Reddit. Search groups by role plus topic, for example “Etsy sellers” or “wedding photographers business”.
  5. Look for niche forums and Q&A sites. Search [niche] forum and inurl:forum [topic]. Old-style forums, Stack Exchange sites, Indie Hackers, Hacker News and industry communities often have fewer people but more serious ones. Check where people in your space ask questions in comments of popular blogs and YouTube channels too.
  6. Set up free keyword alerts. F5Bot emails you when a keyword appears on Reddit, Hacker News or Lobsters. Add your problem phrase and competitor names. Google Alerts can cover the rest of the web. Now new threads come to you instead of you hunting for them.
  7. Put 10–20 places in a sheet and rank them. Columns: name, link, members, posts per day, how often your problem comes up, self-promotion rules, and a score from 1–5. A 5,000-member community where your problem comes up weekly beats a 2 million-member one where it never does.
  8. Read your top five every day for a week before posting. Note what gets upvotes, what gets removed, what questions repeat, and who the helpful regulars are. Read each sidebar, wiki or pinned post for rules about links and promotion.
  9. Start by answering, not announcing. Your first contributions should be useful answers to questions you can help with. That builds the history you need later for answering threads and asking for beta testers.

If you have no karma or history

New accounts get filtered or ignored in many communities. Build a little history first:

  • Use your real account and a normal username. Add a short bio that says what you do.
  • Spend the first week or two commenting helpfully in your target subreddits and one or two bigger general ones. Short, specific answers to beginner questions work well.
  • In Discord and Slack, introduce yourself in the intro channel as a person working in the field, not as a founder with a product.
  • Do not post a link to your product until you have been an active member for a couple of weeks and have checked the rules.

Why it works

Your users already ask for help somewhere. Finding those places tells you how they describe the problem, what they have tried and what they complain about. It also gives you a short list of channels where your first posts, interviews and beta invites will reach the right people instead of strangers.

How it gets users

None in the first week, by design. This is groundwork. The payoff comes later: interviewees from threads, beta testers from communities where you are a known member, and a steady flow of relevant questions from alerts. Founders who do this well often get their first 10–50 users from two or three of these places.

Common mistakes

  • Only listing the biggest, most obvious subreddits.
  • Posting a product link on day one and getting banned.
  • Ignoring Facebook groups and Slack because they feel unfashionable.
  • Collecting a list and never opening it again.
  • Not reading the rules, which often differ a lot from one community to the next.

Next steps

This guide is connected to these guides on the map. Numbered ones come next.

01 Idea02 Waitlist03 Beta04 Launch05 First 10006 First 1kRun ten problem interviews1Build in public2Recruit beta testers in niche communities3Answer questions where they are asked4This guide01 Idea02 Waitlist03 Beta04 Launch05 First 100Run ten problem interviews1Build in public2Recruit beta testers in niche communities3Answer questions where they are asked4This guide
  1. 101 Idea and validation · Direct outreachRun ten problem interviewsTalk to ten people who have the problem before writing code, and ask what they do about it today rather than what they would buy.
  2. 202 Waitlist · SocialBuild in publicPost regular, specific updates about what you are building and what you learned, so people follow the project before it launches.
  3. 303 Private beta · CommunitiesRecruit beta testers in niche communitiesPost in the communities your users belong to, describe the problem plainly, and ask for a small number of testers.
  4. 405 First 100 users · CommunitiesAnswer questions where they are askedSearch communities and Q&A sites for people describing the problem, and give a useful answer that mentions the product only where it helps.