Where to find your first users

By Isidore Mikorey-Nilsson · July 6, 2026

Why communities are the number one channel for first customers

When you're looking for your first users, the instinct is usually to think ads or SEO. Yet in our analysis of 542 founder testimonials, communities come out on top for landing the very first customers. The reason is simple: early on you have neither budget nor a feel for what converts, but you do have a problem that other people are already discussing somewhere, every single day.

It's also what Paul Graham argues when he advises founders to do things that don't scale: going and getting your first users one by one, by hand, wherever they are. Communities are exactly that, industrialized just enough. You find users there, but also the words, the objections and the real problems of your target, which feeds your product just as much as your acquisition.

Where your target actually hangs out, beyond Reddit

"I tried a bit of Reddit" is the sentence you hear the most. The problem is that Reddit is only one door among many, and often the strictest one about self-promotion. Your target also hangs out on niche Discord and Slack servers, specialized forums, groups, Indie Hackers, and above all in the communities that orbit the tools they already use. Each one has its own culture and its own unwritten rules.

That's why the tool doesn't just hand you a random list: it ranks places by how easy they are to enter. Some communities are welcoming and tolerate people talking about their project, others are tightly regulated and remove you at the first link. Knowing what kind of place you're walking into changes everything, because the exact same misstep gets you ignored in one and banned in the other.

The one rule that decides everything: give before you ask

There's really only one rule, and it holds everywhere: you give value before you ask for anything. You answer other people's questions, you share a useful resource, you tell people what you learned, with no sales link attached. Trust is built through repeated contributions, not through a product pitch. Showing up and shouting "I just launched, come check it out" is the surest way to get ignored, when it isn't outright removed.

This isn't patience for its own sake, it's strategy. A community remembers who helps. Once you've spent a few weeks being useful, mentioning what you're building no longer reads as promotion, it reads as a natural next step, and people will go check it out on their own. It's slower than an ad, but it's free, it lasts, and it teaches you your market along the way.

The first message that doesn't get you thrown out

"Be active in the community" doesn't mean anything on its own. What you need is the first concrete move: a precise question that starts a conversation, an honest teardown of your own journey, a resource or a piece of data you give away with nothing asked in return. The right kind of post depends on the place: what works on Indie Hackers isn't what works on a strict subreddit. The tool gives you, for each community, the message to post first and what would get you banned there.

A map of the community types worth checking

It helps to think in categories rather than trying to memorize a static list. Founder hubs like Indie Hackers or Hacker News are built for people who ship and want honest feedback, and they tend to forgive a first-time poster who brings something real to read. Niche Slack and Discord communities, the kind that form around a profession (SEO, e-commerce, no-code, design) rather than around your exact product, are slower to earn trust in but far stickier once you have it, because the same twenty people talk to each other every week. Subreddits sit at the strict end: huge reach, but moderators who remove anything that smells like an ad within minutes, so the content has to stand on its own even if nobody ever clicks through to you. Then there are communities that gather around adjacent tools, a Notion template gallery, a Zapier forum, a Shopify app directory, wherever people already gather to solve a problem next to yours. Those are often the least crowded and the easiest to stand out in, precisely because fewer founders think to look there.

A concrete example: if you're building a rank-tracking tool for SEO agencies, Indie Hackers gets you visibility among other builders but not necessarily buyers, while an SEO-specific Slack or a marketing meetup group gets you fewer eyeballs but a much higher share of people who actually feel the pain you solve. The tool weighs both kinds for you, reach and relevance, instead of only optimizing for the biggest audience.

How to tell it's working, and when to move on

You won't get signups from your very first post, and that's expected. The early signal to watch for isn't clicks, it's replies: are people asking you follow-up questions, quoting you, tagging a friend who has the same problem? That kind of engagement means the community is starting to see you as a source of useful answers, which is exactly the position from which mentioning your product stops sounding like an ad. If three or four weeks of honest contribution produce no engagement at all, that's a sign the place isn't actually where your target spends time, not a sign that you need to push harder or post more often.

When a place clearly isn't it, don't force it, drop down your ranked list and try the next one instead. When a place is working, resist the urge to immediately scale it into a growth channel. Keep showing up as a person for a while longer, let a handful of genuine conversations turn into your first users, and only then start thinking about how to repeat the pattern elsewhere.

How to find new places on your own

No list is ever exhaustive, and communities move around. The best skill is learning to find them yourself. A well-built search query, for instance searching Reddit for discussions around your problem, surfaces places no tool knows about. That's why this one hands you a ready-to-paste query on top of the list: the goal is to make you self-sufficient, not to hand you a single fish. Always check that a place is still active before investing time there, communities appear and die fast.

How much time to spend, and at what pace

Communities reward consistency, not bursts. You're better off spending twenty minutes a day being useful in a single place than dumping ten messages on a Sunday and disappearing for a month. Daily presence, even a short one, makes you familiar: people end up recognizing your name, and that's what turns a stranger into someone people reply to and trust.

That's also why it's better to be genuinely present in one or two communities than spread thin across ten. Each one has its own culture, its regulars, its unwritten rules, and it takes time to understand them. Focus first on the most accessible place where your target is densest, earn a real reputation there, and only open a second one once the first is already bringing you conversations. Being known in one place beats being invisible everywhere.

Frequently asked questions

Where do you find your first users when launching a SaaS?

Wherever your target already hangs out: online communities (subreddits, Discord, niche Slacks), forums, groups, Indie Hackers, communities built around the tools they already use. The goal isn't finding one magic spot, it's showing up where the problem you solve is already being discussed, and being useful before being a seller.

Why communities over ads at the very start?

Because early on you have neither budget nor a feel for what converts, and communities put you in direct contact with your target at zero cost. Beyond finding first users there, you learn their exact words, their objections and their real problems, which is worth its weight in gold for your product and your messaging.

How do you show up without getting banned?

By giving before asking. Answer other people's questions, share a useful resource or a piece of data, contribute for a while before mentioning what you're building. Every community has its own rules on self-promotion: read them, respect them, and treat your reputation there as something earned over weeks, not in a single post.

Should you target French-speaking or English-speaking communities?

It depends on your target. If you sell to French speakers, FR communities are more relevant even if they're smaller. If your target is technical or international, English opens up much bigger communities like Indie Hackers or Reddit. The tool balances both based on the region you indicate.