How to Find Your First 10 Early SaaS Customers in 2025

You’ve built your SaaS product - or at least a working prototype. Now comes the hardest part: finding people who’ll actually pay for it. Getting your first early SaaS customers isn’t about having a perfect product or a massive marketing budget. It’s about finding people with urgent problems and proving you can solve them better than anyone else.

The journey from zero to your first ten paying customers is often the most challenging phase of building a SaaS business. These early adopters will shape your product roadmap, provide invaluable feedback, and become your most vocal advocates - if you find the right ones. In this guide, we’ll explore proven strategies to identify, reach, and convert your first early SaaS customers without breaking the bank.

Why Early SaaS Customers Are Different (And More Valuable)

Early SaaS customers aren’t just your first revenue source - they’re fundamentally different from the customers you’ll acquire later. Understanding these differences is crucial to your approach.

These pioneers are willing to tolerate bugs, incomplete features, and rough edges that later customers would never accept. They’re not buying a polished product; they’re buying the promise of a solution to a problem that’s causing them real pain right now. This means they’re more forgiving, more engaged, and more willing to provide detailed feedback that shapes your product.

Your early customers also tend to have specific characteristics: they’re often power users in their field, early adopters by nature, and willing to take risks on unproven solutions. They understand that being first comes with advantages - better pricing, closer relationships with the founding team, and influence over the product roadmap.

The Real Value of Your First Ten Customers

Beyond revenue, these customers provide:

• Product validation: Proof that people will actually pay for your solution
• Feature prioritization: Real-world feedback on what matters most
• Case studies: Stories and testimonials for future marketing
• Word-of-mouth referrals: Your best source of customers 11-50
• Revenue momentum: Cash flow to keep building

Where to Find Early SaaS Customers: 7 Proven Channels

1. Online Communities Where Your Target Users Congregate

The fastest way to find early SaaS customers is to go where they already spend time discussing their problems. Reddit, specialized forums, Slack communities, and Discord servers are goldmines for early customer acquisition.

Don’t spam these communities with promotional posts. Instead, become a helpful member first. Answer questions, provide value, and build credibility. When you’ve established trust, you can mention your solution contextually or reach out via direct message to people who’ve explicitly mentioned the problem you solve.

For example, if you’re building a tool for remote team collaboration, subreddits like r/startups, r/remotework, or r/digitalnomad are natural hunting grounds. Look for posts where people are actively complaining about existing solutions or asking for recommendations.

2. Your Personal and Professional Network

Your network is often overlooked but incredibly powerful. Send personalized messages to former colleagues, clients, and connections who fit your ideal customer profile. Don’t make it a hard sell - frame it as seeking feedback or beta testers.

A simple message like: “Hey [Name], I’m working on a solution for [specific problem]. Given your experience with [relevant context], I’d love to get your thoughts on whether this would be valuable for you” works remarkably well.

3. LinkedIn Outreach Done Right

LinkedIn is particularly effective for B2B SaaS. Use advanced search to find people with specific job titles who likely experience your target problem. Send connection requests with personalized notes, then follow up with value-first messages.

Instead of pitching immediately, share a relevant insight, article, or offer a free audit related to their pain point. Build a relationship first, then introduce your solution when the timing feels natural.

4. Product Hunt and Launch Platforms

While Product Hunt has become more competitive, it remains a valuable channel for finding early adopters who actively seek new tools. Plan your launch carefully, prepare your network to support you, and engage deeply with everyone who comments.

Beyond Product Hunt, consider BetaList, Hacker News’ “Show HN” threads, and IndieHackers for reaching audiences that love discovering new SaaS products.

5. Content Marketing and SEO (Long-term Play)

Start creating content around the problems you solve, not just your product features. Write blog posts, create YouTube videos, or start a podcast that addresses your target customer’s pain points. This builds authority and attracts inbound interest over time.

Focus on long-tail keywords with clear commercial intent. Someone searching “how to automate customer support for small teams” is much closer to buying than someone searching “customer support software.”

6. Cold Email (When Done Exceptionally Well)

Cold email still works, but only if you’re highly targeted and personalized. Build a list of ideal customers, research each one individually, and craft emails that demonstrate you understand their specific situation.

Your cold email should focus entirely on their problem, not your product. Offer genuine value - a free audit, useful insight, or relevant resource - before ever mentioning what you sell.

7. Partnerships and Integration Opportunities

Partner with complementary tools or services that already serve your target market. Offer integration capabilities or affiliate arrangements that create win-win scenarios. Their existing customer base becomes your warm lead source.

Validating Pain Points Before You Pitch

Before you can effectively sell to early SaaS customers, you need to deeply understand the problems they face. This is where many founders stumble - they pitch features instead of solutions to validated pain points.

The most successful early-stage SaaS founders spend extensive time in communities where their target customers discuss problems openly. They listen more than they talk, identifying patterns in complaints, frustrations, and workarounds people are using.

Using Community Intelligence to Your Advantage

Understanding what real people are struggling with - in their own words - gives you an unfair advantage. When you approach early SaaS customers using the exact language they use to describe their problems, your message resonates immediately.

This is where PainOnSocial becomes invaluable for SaaS founders. Instead of manually scrolling through hundreds of Reddit threads hoping to spot pain points, PainOnSocial analyzes discussions across 30+ curated subreddits and surfaces the most frequently mentioned and intense problems. You get real quotes, upvote counts, and permalinks to the actual discussions - giving you concrete evidence of what problems people are willing to pay to solve.

For example, if you’re building a project management tool, PainOnSocial might reveal that users in r/startups consistently complain about “too many tools causing context switching” rather than lacking features. This insight completely changes your positioning and messaging when approaching early customers.

Crafting Your Outreach: What to Say to Early Customers

Once you’ve identified where your early SaaS customers are and validated the pain points they experience, your outreach message becomes critical. Here’s a framework that consistently works:

The Problem-First Approach

Start with the problem, not your solution. Reference specific pain points you’ve observed or researched. For example:

“I noticed you mentioned struggling with [specific problem] in [community/post]. I’ve been researching this exact issue and found that [interesting insight]. I’m curious - is this still a challenge for you?”

This opens a conversation rather than triggering sales resistance.

Offer Value Before Asking for Anything

Early in your outreach, provide something valuable without expecting anything in return. This could be:

• A free audit or assessment of their current situation
• A useful resource, template, or tool you’ve created
• Insights from your research that they’d find valuable
• Introduction to someone who could help them

Make It About Them, Not You

Your early outreach should focus 90% on their problems and goals, and only 10% on your solution. Ask questions, show genuine curiosity, and listen carefully to their responses. The best early customer conversations feel like consulting sessions, not sales pitches.

Pricing Strategy for Your First Customers

Pricing your SaaS product for early customers requires balancing several factors. Price too low, and you attract tire-kickers who won’t provide valuable feedback. Price too high, and you’ll struggle to get anyone to take a chance on an unproven product.

Consider offering early customer pricing at a significant discount (40-60% off your planned pricing) but with clear terms: the discount is locked in for a specific period (typically 12-24 months), after which pricing adjusts to standard rates. This rewards early adopters while preserving your future pricing power.

Alternatively, offer founding member pricing that’s locked in forever. This creates true advocates who have a vested interest in your success and become powerful word-of-mouth marketers.

Should You Offer Free Pilots?

Free pilots can work, but set clear boundaries. Offer a 14-30 day free trial with specific success metrics you’ll evaluate together. This ensures both parties are invested in making it work and provides a natural transition point to paid usage.

Avoid indefinite free access - it rarely converts and often attracts users who’ll never pay regardless of value delivered.

Converting Interest Into Paying Customers

Once you’ve generated interest, moving prospects to paid customers requires a structured approach. Don’t leave it to chance.

The Demo That Sells

For B2B SaaS, personalized demos are often essential. But don’t do generic product tours. Instead:

• Start by confirming their specific pain points and goals
• Show only the features relevant to solving THEIR problems
• Use their actual data or create realistic scenarios they recognize
• Demonstrate quick wins they could achieve in the first week
• Handle objections by sharing how other early customers overcame similar concerns

Minimize Friction in Your Signup Process

Every additional step in your signup process is a chance to lose early customers. Remove unnecessary form fields, offer single sign-on options, and make it possible to get value before requiring payment information.

Consider offering a “product-led growth” approach where users can start using limited features immediately, then upgrade when they hit value or usage limits.

Turning Early Customers Into Advocates

Your first ten customers should become your biggest advocates. Here’s how to make that happen:

Provide white-glove service. Be ridiculously responsive. When early customers email or message you, respond within hours, not days. Fix their bugs immediately. Implement their most-requested features quickly. They should feel like VIPs because they are.

Create a feedback loop that makes them feel heard. Use tools like Slack or dedicated channels where early customers can directly reach your team. Share your product roadmap and let them influence priorities. When you ship a feature they requested, personally notify them.

Ask for case studies and testimonials at the right moment - right after they’ve achieved a meaningful win using your product. Make it easy by drafting the testimonial for them based on their success, then ask them to review and approve it.

Common Mistakes That Sabotage Early Customer Acquisition

Avoid these pitfalls that derail many SaaS founders:

Building in isolation: Don’t spend months perfecting your product before talking to customers. Start conversations early and build based on feedback.

Targeting everyone: “Anyone who needs X” is not a target market. Get specific about exactly who you’re serving. The narrower your focus, the easier it is to find and convert early customers.

Feature dumping: Listing every feature your product has turns off early customers. They want to know if you solve their problem, not see your feature matrix.

Ignoring feedback: If multiple early customers request the same thing or complain about the same issue, prioritize it. Your product roadmap should be driven by customer needs, not your original vision.

Underpricing permanently: While early discounts make sense, don’t devalue your product long-term. Build pricing power from the start.

Conclusion: Your Action Plan for Finding Early SaaS Customers

Finding your first early SaaS customers is about focused action, not perfect strategy. Start with these immediate next steps:

First, identify three online communities where your target customers actively discuss their problems. Spend one week just listening and documenting the pain points you observe. Second, craft personalized outreach messages to ten people from your network who fit your ideal customer profile. Focus on their problems and offer value first.

Third, create a simple landing page that clearly articulates the problem you solve and includes a way for interested people to contact you or start a trial. Fourth, commit to having at least three customer conversations per week, whether they convert or not.

Remember: your first ten customers won’t come from perfect marketing or a flawless product. They’ll come from your persistence, genuine desire to solve their problems, and willingness to adapt based on their feedback. Start the conversations today. Your early SaaS customers are out there, actively looking for solutions. Make it easy for them to find you.