I have made many of these mistakes to some degree, would love to know what other have tried/learned around early customer acquisition?
- Biggest mistake new startups make is trying to use marketing strategies of more mature companies - don’t focus on PR or creating a hot instagram account (unless you already have one) - try to focus on finding small spots, doing localized growth
- Don't worry about your website, your brand or logo, don't do anything unless you HAVE to, just go and find those first customers - if they start asking for a website then it's time to build one.
- Your first 100 customers is not about make money, it's really about learning - learning the type of wording, branding, or parts of your product that resonates with your customers
- Choose marketing strategies that will give you feedback quickly: think hours or days, not weeks or months. That means SEO or Pinterest will probably not make sense for your first 100 customers.
- B2B: don't underestimate the power of email marketing, and use mail merge!! (but check your local regulation)
- The beginning is about finding those quick hit strategies! Don't linger, if you try a strategy for a week and don't see any results, move on! There are a million different platforms and strategies to try, keep on moving and trying new things!
- Maybe give TikTok or Youtube stories a whirl if you haven’t yet.
All of these tips are from a Founder Chat with Louisamay Hanrahan of Let’s Match Mums (formerly growth @ Deliveroo, Patreon, WebSummit) recently. We have a Community of early-stage female and non-binary founders for more amazing conversations with early-stage founders sharing their learnings and expertise for free.
Our next Founder Chat topic is on How to Build Momentum and Move Faster as an early-stage founder with Kelly McDonald next Wednesday, Sept 29th! Register Here
