Quick answer
You get sign-ups before people know your product by going where the pain already exists, starting specific conversations, and making the first action stupidly easy. Do not “build awareness” in the abstract. Find 50 people with the problem, show them the exact outcome, and ask for the smallest possible commitment.
You launched, posted on LinkedIn, sent the Product Hunt link, maybe emailed a few friends, then watched the graph stay flat. That feels brutal because it looks like rejection. Most of the time, it is not rejection. It is obscurity plus a weak path from “interesting” to “I’ll try this.”
Find 50 people who already have the problem
Your first sign-ups will not come from “the market.” They will come from specific humans already complaining, searching, hacking together spreadsheets, or paying for awkward alternatives.
Spend one hour building a list of 50 people who have clear evidence of the problem.
Good places to look:
- Reddit threads where people ask for tool recommendations
- LinkedIn posts where operators complain about a workflow
- Slack or Discord communities in your niche
- Twitter/X searches for phrases like “any tool for,” “how do you manage,” “tired of using”
- G2/Capterra reviews of competitors, especially 2-star and 3-star reviews
- Job posts that mention the workflow your product automates
- YouTube comments under tutorials for the manual process
Example: if your product helps agencies collect client feedback on designs, do not search for “agency owners.” Search for:
- “client feedback all over Slack”
- “Figma comments are a mess”
- “how to get clients to approve designs”
- “best design proofing tool alternatives”
- “client revision tracker spreadsheet”
Create a simple sheet:
| Name | Source | Pain signal | Current workaround | Contact | |---|---|---|---|---| | Maya | Reddit thread | “Clients approve in email then change scope” | Google Docs | profile link | | Tom | LinkedIn post | “feedback is scattered across tools” | Slack screenshots | email | | Studio X | G2 review | hates competitor pricing | MarkUp.io | website |
Do not start with ads. Do not start with SEO. Do not start with “we need a community.” Start with 50 names and proof they care.
Make the sign-up offer more specific
Most failed launch copy says what the product is. Early users need to know what annoying thing disappears.
Weak offer:
“An AI-powered workspace for managing customer research.”
Better offer:
“Upload 10 customer calls and get a tagged pain-point report in 15 minutes.”
Weak offer:
“A modern analytics dashboard for SaaS teams.”
Better offer:
“Find which onboarding step is killing trial activation without writing SQL.”
Your landing page should answer three questions above the fold:
- Who is this for?
“For solo B2B founders doing founder-led sales.”
- What painful job does it solve?
“Turn messy sales call notes into follow-up emails, CRM updates, and objection summaries.”
- What happens after I sign up?
“Connect Google Meet, import your last 5 calls, get a summary in 3 minutes.”
If your product is new, avoid vague platform words:
- “workspace”
- “operating system”
- “hub”
- “AI copilot”
- “all-in-one”
- “next-generation”
Replace them with verbs:
- “import”
- “find”
- “send”
- “summarize”
- “track”
- “approve”
- “compare”
Then create one sign-up promise:
“Sign up and get your first [specific result] in under [time].”
Examples:
- “Get your first invoice chased in under 2 minutes.”
- “Generate your first customer interview summary in under 5 minutes.”
- “Find 3 broken onboarding steps before lunch.”
- “Create a client-ready proposal from a discovery call in 10 minutes.”
People do not sign up because your product exists. They sign up because the next 10 minutes sound useful.
Do direct outreach that does not sound like spam
Cold outreach works when it is based on a real signal. It fails when it looks like a mail merge wearing a fake mustache.
Use this structure:
- Mention the specific pain signal.
- Say what you built in one sentence.
- Offer a tiny useful action.
- Ask for permission, not a demo.
Template:
Hey Sam — saw your post about tracking client feedback across Slack, email, and Figma.
I built a small tool that pulls feedback into one approval thread so agencies can stop losing revision requests.
If useful, I can run one of your current projects through it and send back a clean feedback view. No pitch if it’s not relevant.
Worth trying?
Why this works:
- It proves you read something real.
- It offers labor before asking for time.
- It does not demand a 30-minute call.
- It makes “yes” feel low-risk.
Send 20 of these per day for five days. Track replies manually.
Expected numbers for a decent niche offer:
- 100 targeted messages
- 30-50 opens/views if the channel exposes it
- 10-20 replies
- 5-10 trials or test accounts
- 2-5 serious users
That is enough to learn. If you send 100 targeted messages and get zero replies, your audience, pain, or message is wrong. That is useful data, not failure.
Do not outsource this yet. The founder needs to feel the objections directly:
- “We already use Notion.”
- “Looks cool but not urgent.”
- “Can it integrate with HubSpot?”
- “I don’t want another dashboard.”
- “My team won’t adopt it.”
Those lines are not annoyances. They are your roadmap, positioning, and landing page rewrite.
Give people a reason to sign up now
“Try our beta” is not a reason. Neither is “we just launched.”
Early sign-ups need a specific incentive tied to their problem, not a fake countdown timer.
Use one of these:
- Done-with-you setup
> “I’ll personally import your first 20 records and clean the fields.”
- Founder review
> “I’ll review your onboarding flow and show where users are dropping.”
- Limited use case
> “I’m onboarding 10 agencies that need client approvals fixed this month.”
- Template pack
> “Sign up and get the exact dashboard we use to track demo-to-close conversion.”
- Public teardown
> “Send your pricing page, get a 5-minute teardown and a working test inside the product.”
The best early offer often includes manual work. That is fine. You are not proving the machine scales yet. You are proving the outcome matters.
Example: if your SaaS automates churn analysis, do not say:
“Start your free trial.”
Say:
“Send us your last 50 cancellation reasons. We’ll tag them, show the top 3 churn drivers, and give you the dashboard inside your account.”
That gets sign-ups because the value happens immediately.
Fix the path from interest to account
Sometimes people are interested, but your sign-up flow leaks them.
Check these today:
- Can someone understand the product in 5 seconds?
- Is the CTA visible without scrolling?
- Does the CTA say what happens next?
- Are you asking for a credit card too early?
- Are you asking for company size, phone number, role, and use case before showing value?
- Does the confirmation email arrive instantly?
- Does the first screen help them do one useful thing?
Bad CTA:
“Get started”
Better CTA:
“Import my first call”
Bad first screen:
“Complete your profile.”
Better first screen:
“Upload a call recording to generate your first summary.”
For unknown products, every extra field is a tax. Remove anything you do not need today.
A simple early funnel:
- Landing page with one promise
- Email sign-up or Google auth
- One onboarding question: “What are you trying to fix?”
- Immediate action that creates value
- Founder follow-up within 24 hours
Send this follow-up manually:
Hey Alex — saw you signed up to test the feedback tracker. What project are you trying it on? If you send me the context, I can help set up the first approval flow.
Early users forgive rough edges when they feel a human is paying attention.
Turn every small win into proof
Nobody knows your product, so you need borrowed trust. The fastest source is proof from tiny wins.
After every useful interaction, ask for one concrete line.
Not:
“Can you give us a testimonial?”
Ask:
“Could I quote you saying ‘this saved me 2 hours pulling feedback together’?”
Collect proof in exact language:
- “Saved 45 minutes before our weekly sales meeting.”
- “Found 12 duplicate leads we would have emailed twice.”
- “Replaced the spreadsheet we used for invoice follow-ups.”
- “Got our client to approve the design without another Zoom call.”
Then publish it everywhere:
- Landing page hero section
- Founder LinkedIn post
- Outreach follow-up
- Demo script
- Email signature
- Onboarding screen
A simple proof post:
We helped a 6-person agency pull scattered client feedback from Slack and Figma into one approval view.
Result: 31 comments organized, 4 duplicate requests removed, final approval sent in one thread.
If client feedback is slowing your projects down, I’m setting up 5 more teams this week.
That is stronger than “excited to announce.”
Where Lifto fits in
Launch posts vanish fast, and most directories only give you one short spike. A vertical-swipe product reel gives people a quick way to understand what you built, who it is for, and why it is worth trying without reading a long page first. Use it after you have a sharp promise and a working first action, so discovery turns into sign-ups instead of empty views.
FAQ
how do I get my first users with no audience?
Start with direct outreach to people showing public pain signals. Build a list of 50 qualified prospects, write personal messages, and offer to help them get one result manually. An audience helps later; targeted conversations help today.
should I launch on Product Hunt if nobody knows my product?
Yes, but do not treat it as the whole launch. Product Hunt can create a spike, but you still need a clear offer, active outreach, and follow-up. The mistake is expecting strangers to understand and trust a brand-new product from one launch page.
why are people visiting but not signing up?
Usually the promise is too vague, the sign-up flow asks too much, or the product does not show value fast enough. Watch five people use the page or record sessions with a tool like Hotjar. Fix the first confusing moment before chasing more traffic.
should I offer a free trial or free plan?
Offer whatever gets the user to a real result fastest. For early-stage SaaS, a free trial with hands-on setup often beats a broad free plan because you can learn from serious users. If the product needs data, setup, or integrations, help the first users do that manually.
how many sign-ups should I expect from cold outreach?
For a targeted list, 100 thoughtful messages might produce 5 to 10 trials. If you get less than that, inspect the audience, pain signal, and offer before blaming the product. If replies are positive but sign-ups are low, your landing page or onboarding is probably leaking trust.
Takeaway
You do not need everyone to know your product. You need 50 specific people with the problem to understand one clear promise and take one low-risk step. Today, build the list, send 20 personal messages, and rewrite your sign-up flow around the first useful result.