-Serial Entrepreneur Daniel Priestley on the Modern Wisdom Podcast.
Quick Intro
What’s the problem?
You’re starting a new project. You want to quickly evaluate whether your product solves the problem you've identified. The critical question is: how do you connect with your first 30 potential customers?
Starting with a new business involves getting in touch with your specific target group. Especially, as you want to make sure you know what’s top of mind for them. But where do you find those individuals you want to serve with your products or services? And how do you take the first steps to engage with them?
In this post, I will share a few tactics and stories on how to get in personal contact with your first potential customers within a few days.
Own background
What’s my context/experience connecting with first potential customers?
I've been struggling for years with product-market fit, marketing, development, branding, and all the other relevant elements necessary to build a successful company. But there is one thing I believe I've figured out universally: how to reach my target audiences. The interesting part for me was that the approach didn't change after I switched industries or demographics. Whatever project, startup or business context I was reaching out to my target audience the same approach worked over and over again. No matter if I was looking for musicians for my digital social platform, CTOs from Series A startups for a community I built while working at Google, or bootstrapped entrepreneurs for the 40 Hour Entrepreneur Club, the path from 0 connections to 30 was the same.
When I started LIVRIA (one of my first startups), I had a few friends who were making music professionally. They inspired my vision to build a platform that helps underground musicians make a living with their music - without relying on music labels. However, I realized that I quickly needed more musicians to test my digital platform. So I went for the intuitively easiest seeming option: searching for promising underground musicians on Soundcloud and sending cold messages to them. I had no idea what I was doing. I simply developed the first MVP (a functioning social media platform for musicians) and sent messages on Soundcloud asking them to join the platform. Checking my Soundcloud inbox from 2020, I can see that I initially reached out to 12 musicians. 4 of the 12 musicians directly signed up for my platform. Pretty decent success rate. So, I stuck to my cold outreach approach. A few years later, the platform had evolved to a content platform for musicians. We worked together with over 85 musicians, almost all of them were reached by cold outreach messages on Instagram (I realized Instagram was working even better than Soundcloud).
Similar story when I founded a community for ClimateTech Startups during my time at Google. I cold-emailed over 100 startups to show them the value they would get if they join our next community workshop. At the end, we had a community with over 80 founders, tech leaders, or CTOs from ClimateTech Startups who regularly joined our community workshops.
While currently building up the 40 Hour Entrepreneur Club, I’m witnessing the same pattern. Reaching out to bootstrapped founders via LinkedIn with direct messages has led to several feedback meetings, a first cohort of founders in the club, and several new connections in my personal network.
The Cold Outreach Framework
How to connect with your first 30 potential customers?
Let’s assume you know exactly who your target audience is. Starting from this point, there is a simple framework you can use to reach them. Not to connect with 1000 of them, but with statistically significant number of 30 to evaluate your product and try to win them as your first paying customers.
The Platform
Step 1: Start by finding out where your target audience usually hangs out online. What are the platforms or channels where they spend most of their time? For example: for musicians it was Instagram and Soundcloud, for CTOs of ClimateTech Startups it was direct email and for bootstrapped founders it’s mostly LinkedIn, reddit or X. Pro tip: If you need support for the platform decision, let an LLM-Agent do some research for you. Simply provide your target group description and write a prompt asking which platform they spend most of their time.
Step 2: Also, ensure you're choosing a platform that allows you to DM people.
Step 3: After you've identified the platform, make sure you have an appealing profile there. Set up your profile image and profile descriptions. Optionally, include an indicator in your profile that demonstrates your competence to solve the problem you're addressing for them. This can be, for example, an email footer linking to your website or a LinkedIn profile description showcasing your past achievements.
The Message
Step 1: Might be common sense, but ensure your message is personalized. It’s easy to spot a copy & paste message. You don't want to send the same message to 100 people and then realize that nobody replied. For sure, in some way you have to have parts of your text that you copy & paste, but it should also include a part in which you show admiration for or interest in their achievements, projects or other personal aspects.
Step 2: Clearly communicate your authentic 'Why'. Why are you doing this project? What is your mission?What is your personal story? What motivates you? Don't make this a long paragraph; it can be just one sentence. Communicating your 'Why' makes it easier for the person to trust and believe in your vision and offerings.
Step 3: The most important one: your value proposition for them. Be very clear and simple in how you communicate what you have to offer them. Link your value proposition to a problem they have, focusing on the benefit for them instead of merely mentioning features or your product. Ideally, include some proof that you can deliver or have already delivered on your promise.
Call to Action
Depends on if you prefer starting a conversation first and then following up or including the call to action in your initial message. I always include it in my first message. Just to make sure that I’m making use of the initial spark of interest if the person is hooked.
Ultimately, you need to find a specific outreach approach that suits your target group. Also, be aware that it's a numbers game. You probably have to reach out to 100 people to get 15 responses. It's largely about experimenting and closely monitoring your response and call-to-action rates. It's work, but with consistency and gradual improvements in your messaging you will get to 30 people.
As a little extra, here’s what worked for me on different platforms:
How to DM?
Send out a Connection Invite first with no message attached; after acceptance, send your message.
What tone / content?
Use informal and personalized messages to stand out among all the marketing and copy & paste messages in the inbox. Also keep it as short as possible (without missing the important aspects).
How to structure it?
Ideally, split your message into small chunks and send them one by one instead of putting everything into a single message.
How to DM?
Make sure to mention where you found the email address (ideally, from a common connection or from a public source).
What tone / content?
Depends heavily on the recipient and their tone of voice.
How to structure it?
I always include one or two personalized sentences more than on social media DMs. You can really stand out by clearly articulating why you can provide value to the person.
Instagram & Soundcloud
How to DM?
Direct messages without following each other can work quite well.
What tone / content?
Depends on the target group, but I would say authenticity about your ‘Why’ is key.
How to structure it?
Make sure your message does not exceed the word limit, as you might be only allowed to send one message to a stranger.
Example of my Outreach Message on Soundcloud in 2020 that led to the first sign-ups on the LIVRIA platform:
Inspiration I used for this article
Books, Podcasts, Articles, Quotes
- Daniel Priestley on the Modern Wisdom Podcast about the importance of connecting with an initial batch of 30 potential customers.
- Noah Kagan in Million Dollar Weekend about the importance of reaching out to your ideal customers early on.
Related topics
List of related blog articles from 40 Hour Entrepreneur
Community Space
Your comments, ideas, feedback
- What was your biggest challenge when trying to connect with your very first potential customers?
- Which online platforms or channels did you find most effective for reaching your target audience, and why?
- What kind of "proof" or social validation did you use (or wish you had used) to build trust with your first contacts?
- ...
Join the discussion below. Or write me an email to fabiano@40hourentrepreneur.com