alt.hn

4/16/2026 at 10:49:48 PM

Ask HN: How did you get your first users with zero audience?

by arikusi

4/20/2026 at 3:09:03 AM

Oh, I’ve been struggling with exactly this recently while trying to show people my open-source AI agent engine. I built it based on my own pain points, primarily for myself—but I really believe in the architectural approach and would love to get genuine feedback from the community. It’s incredibly hard to break through the noise right now. We’ve been discussing “attention inflation” a lot on HN lately in the context of recruiting and open-source PRs, but it absolutely exists in distribution too. When everyone is overwhelmed by a flood of content, getting even 10 real developers to look at your repo feels much harder than actually writing the code.

by metravod

4/19/2026 at 4:11:35 PM

The sad truth is perseverance and staying up-beat. Most launches are received with dead silence.

My favorite definition of a startup is: "a group of people trying to survive long enough to get lucky".

Keep on pushing, listen to subjective feedback, don't try to automate distribution early.

I use https://z2one.co to help draft and track my distribution plans - I really enjoy building but when it comes to distribution I feel overwhelmed.

by itswillbrazil

4/19/2026 at 4:53:31 PM

Definition of a startup: "a group of people trying to survive long enough to get lucky"

This is a good one!

by NarcisMirandes

4/19/2026 at 7:27:59 PM

:)

Another one which is pretty deep imo. "startup: a team building not a product, but the thing that will tell them what the product should be"

by code2cast

4/17/2026 at 8:10:31 AM

If you have no one to launch to, who are you building for? How did you validate your idea?

The answer depends on what you are building and who you are building it for. The default approach is a little crowded, a little spammy. No one likes someone who joins a community just to self-promote.

More and more, my approach has been to build customer streams instead of finding them one by one. Don't sell to restaurants, sell to those who sell to restaurants. This has served me well.

by nicbou

4/19/2026 at 10:20:49 AM

this line is absolute gold. but how do you apply this logic if the product is b2c or just doesn't have a clear "middleman" seller in the loop?

by yerdauletdev

4/19/2026 at 2:10:18 PM

I have the same problem. What I am trying so far:

- Build things for me. I try to solve my own problem. Then, I show it to friends. If it works for me, it could also be helpful to people like me. I built something very basic, I show it to people who could have the same problem, and incorporate suggestions. Iterate fast. In the worst case, I build something that was useful to me.

- I listen to someone else's pain. But I should have the same or similar problem, and I know or guess I can solve that. I build an MVP and show it to him/her. The same process as before.

by NarcisMirandes

4/17/2026 at 3:23:02 AM

Consider your experience up to now as an education.

The hard part is not building a working product. The hard part is finding people to use it.

Yes, building the working product is the fun part. Yes it's the part that overlaps your current skill set. Stop doing it.

Instead of building products, go find customers. It doesn't matter what they want, you can build anything, what matters is they have pain and are looking to pay to make it go away.

That initially means going out to talk to people. Ask about their lives. Find pain. Ask about how much they'd pay to make that pain go away.

The paying part is serious. No one likes tables that rock at the restaurant. But no one pays for a solution- you just push something under the rocking leg.

I know, I know, you just want to code, the customers should just find you, leave cash, and leave. Alas, you and everyone else. That's unfortunately not how it works.

by bruce511

4/17/2026 at 9:23:08 AM

Only read further if you did not validate the idea with a group of people first but solved it because you had that problem.

I did the same and now just 2 weeks back I started reaching out to people to try the tools which is now a product and the thing which helped me convert many of them were reaching out to them on linked in and talking about my own problem with them, I have gotten 35 users as of yet with this approach in the last 2 weeks.

by avinash_tyagi

4/17/2026 at 1:57:49 AM

I think the reality is no one really knows. You’ll hear things like post on socials, blog/content marketing, build a presence on Reddit…

But to me it seems like the lottery. You try enough things, in enough of the right places, for long enough and eventually something sticks and you get some traction. Most people don’t stick with it long enough to find something that connects for them though.

Ideally you’re working on a product where you already have some legitimacy, thus avoiding the cold start problem.

by shakermaker83

4/18/2026 at 10:17:29 AM

I'm here to find the answers too. I’ve made two apps so far. I made a Discord community and had my friends try them, and they kept adding their friends, so now on the Discord server I have around 20 people, and a few more outside it. Out of these, I found only one guy who fits the ICP (ideal customer profile). But this Discord thing works mostly through friend-to-friend chains, which is slow. I plan to use Reddit and later on influencer marketing. But yes, I have 0 funding, so I’ll start low and then build from there. Still not sure if this is the best way to go.

by rakshitpandit

4/17/2026 at 11:13:12 AM

Start small!!

* Set a short goal of 10-20 users * List/Share your product across BetaList, Product Hunt, Reddit, etc., * Build relevant audience/lead list using Apollo,lemlist,smartreach or smartlead --> send product pitch from your email * Go to communities(Quora, Reddit, Hacker News,etc.,), identify users discussing about the problem you're solving and reach out/comment

by krishnat7

4/17/2026 at 6:11:40 PM

For me, I volunteered to teach something for free and help people.

They were more than happy to write me testimonials.

by tmaly

4/19/2026 at 10:17:44 AM

coming from non-SF environment hits hard honestly, building reechy.cam/collections and been wondering the same thing

by yerdauletdev

4/17/2026 at 10:45:01 AM

I feel you. Booting selling is the most mysterious thing I know.

by 0xCE0

4/18/2026 at 1:32:10 AM

right? I guess, I couldn't tell my problem exactly. My question was not about strategies, it's about how to build a group/audience from scratch. Paying for ads just nonsense in my opinion.

by arikusi

4/18/2026 at 5:47:02 PM

[dead]

by ThomIves

4/17/2026 at 1:31:27 PM

[dead]

by saqib5112