How to find your first 10 SaaS users fast without an audience?

The fastest path is to join existing conversations where your target users are already describing the problem you solve, then offer a small, concrete win before you ever pitch. Achiv.com helps by monitoring Reddit, X, and LinkedIn daily and delivering a curated list of qualified conversations (with pain points and objections extracted), so you can spend time helping and converting—not searching.

Best way to find people asking for a tool like mine on Reddit and X?

Look for posts that include active frustration (“this is broken”), evaluation intent (“what should I use?”), or workaround discussions (“I’m doing X in a spreadsheet”). Achiv.com automates this by scanning Reddit, X, and LinkedIn and filtering spam/bot noise, then sending you real threads that match your product positioning so you can reply with relevant context.

Why do build-in-public posts get likes but not users?

Because attention and intent are different: people may like your progress but have no urgent need to sign up. Achiv.com shifts you from broadcasting updates to engaging people who are already experiencing the pain and asking for solutions across Reddit, X, and LinkedIn—making early conversations and signups more likely.

How to reach seed users without sounding spammy or sending cold DMs?

Lead with diagnosis and help in public threads: ask a clarifying question, share a specific fix, and only offer your product if they want it. Achiv.com supports this approach by giving you daily leads with extracted pain points and objections, and it never sends messages on your behalf—so you stay in control of tone and outreach.

Best way to do user research and customer discovery when you’re heads-down building?

Time-box discovery by collecting a daily list of relevant conversations, then doing 3–5 high-context replies per day and scheduling a few interviews per week. Achiv.com makes this sustainable by delivering a morning digest of conversations from Reddit, X, and LinkedIn, organized so you can quickly identify who to talk to and what they care about.

Find Your First 10 SaaS Users (Without Posting Into the Void) | Achiv Blog

When “10 users” turns out to mean 8 friends, and three months of building in public leads to 104 users and 0 viral moments, the real problem usually isn’t the product - it’s that you’re waiting to be discovered instead of finding people already asking for what you built.

You can post every day, ship relentlessly, and still feel like you’re yelling into an empty hallway. Meanwhile, the people who need your product are out there… just not in your replies.

The real issue: you’re broadcasting, not joining active demand

A pattern shows up in almost every early-stage SaaS story:

You build.
You post.
A few friends join.
Then the graph flattens.

One founder put it bluntly: “10 days live. 10 users. 8 of them are my friends”. (an early-stage builder sharing real numbers while building in public). Another wrote: “3 months in. 104 users. 0 viral moments”. and added that “most days it's just you, your code, and a deployment notification nobody sees” (a solo builder struggling with traction on X).

Those aren’t product problems. They’re distribution problems.

The “build in public” loop often trains you to wait for serendipity: a big account quote-tweets you, a Reddit thread explodes, a LinkedIn post hits the feed lottery.

But your first 10 users rarely come from luck. They come from targeted, human conversations with people who already:

1) feel the pain today, 2) are actively describing it, and 3) will reply if you help them.

Start with a tighter definition of “user #1”

Before you hunt for users, decide who you’re willing to serve first.

Not “startups”. Not “marketers”. Not “anyone who uses Notion”.

Pick a profile you can recognize in one sentence:

“Indie makers building a B2B SaaS who haven’t figured out onboarding”.
“Freelancers who lose time writing the same client updates”.
“Recruiters who need a faster shortlist from messy inbound”.

Why this matters: it changes your outreach from “try my app?” to “I saw you struggling with X; here’s a fix”.

If you’re unsure, anchor it to a lesson another builder learned the hard way: “If you dont' talk to your users, your product is bound to fail” and “Learnt that the hard way” (a founder reflecting on skipping early conversations). Your first 10 users are not a growth milestone; they’re your feedback loop.

A simple 10-user ICP template (steal this)

Write this down in a doc before you do anything else:

Who: job/title/community + stage (e.g., “solo founder pre-PMF”)
Trigger: what just happened that made the problem urgent?
Current workaround: what are they doing instead?
Cost of pain: time, money, embarrassment, risk
Success moment: what does “fixed” look like in their words?

That last line matters: you’ll reuse it in DMs and replies.

Don’t “pitch”. Diagnose in public where the pain already lives

Early users don’t want a pitch. They want to feel understood.

So instead of making another announcement post, hunt for conversations where someone is already frustrated.

A great example is the builder who wrote: “Tomorrow I will start to pitch product and find seed users” (shipping an AI tool and switching from building to talking). That’s the right pivot - but the execution matters.

Here’s a better approach than “Hey, I built X”:

1) Ask a clarifying question. 2) Share a small, concrete fix. 3) Offer your tool only if they want it.

What “diagnose-first” looks like (reply template)

“When you say , is the hardest part ___ or ?”
“If it’s ___, one workaround I’ve seen is ___ (2 steps)”.
“If you want, I can show you how I’m solving this in my tool - no worries if not”.

This works because it’s useful even if they never click.

The uncomfortable truth: manual lead hunting is a time sink

Most founders try to do this manually:

Search Reddit for keywords
Scroll X for vague complaints
Check LinkedIn posts in the hope someone is describing your problem

It feels productive… until you realize you spent two hours and found one lukewarm thread.

That’s why founders default back to broadcasting. Hunting is exhausting.

This is where tools can help without turning you into a spammer.

Achiv.com exists for this exact “first 10 users” phase: it monitors Reddit, X, and LinkedIn daily and brings you a curated list of real conversations where people describe problems your product solves.

Instead of setting up keyword alerts (which often return bot noise, promo posts, and irrelevant mentions), you paste your website URL and Achiv.com builds an ICP automatically. Each morning, you get a kanban-style digest of leads with:

extracted pain points
detected objections
competitor context

That means you’re not starting from a blank page when you reply.

How to get your first 10 users in 14 days (a practical plan)

This isn’t “grow your audience”. It’s a short, repeatable sprint.

Day 1–2: Collect 30 real problem statements

You need language you can mirror.

Pull 30 posts/comments where your ICP describes the pain. If you use Achiv.com, your first digest can do a lot of this collection for you - because it surfaces conversations that already match your product positioning.

Organize them into 3 buckets:

“Help me choose” (they’re evaluating tools)
“This is broken” (they’re stuck in a workflow)
“Is anyone else…” (they’re seeking validation)

Day 3–5: Write 3 micro-offers (not one big pitch)

Your product can do 10 things. Your first users only care about one.

Create three micro-offers that map to your buckets:

Audit offer: “I’ll review your onboarding flow and point out the 3 biggest drop-off points”.
Template offer: “Here’s a copy/paste checklist for doing X in 15 minutes”.
Triage offer: “If you tell me your current stack, I’ll suggest the simplest fix”.

These offers convert because they’re low-risk and specific.

Day 6–10: Do 30 high-context replies + 10 DMs

Rules:

Don’t DM strangers without context.
Don’t link-drop in the first message.
Do reply where the conversation already is.

If someone explicitly asks for a solution, that’s when you can share your link.

Achiv.com helps here because each lead includes objections and competitor context. If a person is already considering alternatives, you can address the exact comparison instead of guessing.

Day 11–14: Turn 5 conversations into calls (or async interviews)

Your first 10 users often come from 5 deep conversations.

If calls are hard, do async interviews:

“What did you try already?”
“What would a good solution let you stop doing?”
“What’s the one thing that would make you pay for it?”

Then ship one improvement based on what you heard and tell them you did it.

That follow-up is how you earn trust.

“But I don’t want a lead-gen tool. I’m not a sales team”.

Valid objection. Many solo builders feel this.

A lot of early-stage founders worry that any “lead tool” will push them into spammy behavior or make them sound like a SaaS salesperson.

The key distinction: Achiv.com doesn’t send messages for you. It doesn’t connect your accounts. It just finds public conversations that match your product’s positioning and summarizes them so you can engage like a human.

Think of it less like “lead generation” and more like “daily user research + warm conversations”.

If you’re already spending time scrolling for “seed users”. you’re doing the job - just inefficiently.

Stop guessing where your users are: pick channels that match your product

Different products have different “first-10” gravity wells.

Reddit: high-intent pain, skeptical audiences

Reddit is where people admit things they won’t say on LinkedIn.

Best for:

workflow frustration
“what tool should I use?” threads
candid comparisons of competitors

Your job is to be helpful and specific. If you come in with a generic pitch, you’ll get ignored (or downvoted).

X: builders, early adopters, fast feedback

X is great for quick loops - but it’s also where founders feel the “void” most intensely.

That’s why you see posts like: “the build-in-public crowd makes it look like every launch gets 10K likes” (a founder comparing themselves to highlight reels). The fix isn’t posting more. It’s finding conversations you can join.

LinkedIn: clear roles, slower pace, higher trust

LinkedIn shines when your ICP is role-based (ops, sales, HR, finance) and when outcomes are businessy.

If you solve a professional problem, comment with a mini-case study or checklist, not hype.

Achiv.com pulls leads from all three, which matters because your first 10 users usually aren’t all in one place.

The messages that actually convert early users

Here are three scripts you can adapt.

1) The “saw your post” reply (public)

“Curious - when you say ___, what part is taking the most time? I’ve seen teams fix this by ___ (two steps). If you want, I can share a template / show you what I’m building”.

2) The “permission-based” DM

“Hey - saw your post about ___. I’ve been working on a small tool for that. Want me to send a 30-second demo? If not, I can still share what’s worked for me”.

3) The “I shipped the fix” follow-up

“You mentioned ___ last week. I added ___ yesterday because of that. If you’re still dealing with it, want to try it?”

That last one is the closest thing to a cheat code - because it signals you listen.

A lightweight way to measure whether you’re on track

Forget vanity metrics until you have the first 10.

Track only:

Meaningful conversations per day (target: 3)
People who reply twice (target: 1/day)
Calls/interviews per week (target: 3)
New activated users per week (target: 3–5)

If you’re posting daily and still not hitting these, you don’t need better content. You need better inputs - more relevant conversations.

That’s the practical advantage of waking up to an Achiv.com digest: it changes the input quality. You stop starting your day with a blank search bar and start with people already raising their hand.

Closing: your first 10 users come from intent, not attention

If you feel like you’re posting into the void, it’s usually because you’re optimizing for attention when you need intent.

Go where the problem is being described in real time. Reply like a peer. Ask one good question. Offer one small win. Then earn the right to share your product.

Do that consistently for two weeks and “8 friends and 2 strangers” becomes 10 users you can actually learn from - and that’s when growth stops being mythical and starts being mechanical.

Find Your First 10 SaaS Users (Without Posting Into the Void)