21 Ways to Get Your First 5 Customers ($0 Budget)
I walk you through exactly how to get your first 5 customers for your new product, service, or offer.
In case you missed it:
Most startups die before they hit 5 customers.
Not because the product is bad. Because the founder doesn’t know where to FIND people.
I put together my FULL playbook for getting your first customers.
15 free methods. 6 paid methods. Every single one I've either done myself, am testing right now, or plan to try.
I grew Blotato from 0 to thousands of paying customers, completely SOLO, and I'm STILL doing most of these marketing channels.
None of them "tapped out."
They all keep working, 100x more users later.
Today I'm breaking it down step by step.
To support my free AI education: HIT LIKE + LEAVE A COMMENT🙏
The FREE Methods
1. Reach Out to Friends, Family, and Past Colleagues
I’m going to be honest. I skipped this one entirely.
I didn’t know any content creators or influencers in my network. And I didn’t want to deal with explaining what I was building to people who wouldn’t get it.
But if your product or service is relevant to people in your warm network... start here.
I know consultants who landed their first client from a friend’s referral. They did the work, built a case study, and used it to reach out to strangers.
The benefit of warm relationships: you have leeway to figure things out. You’re not under pressure to nail it for a cold client on day 1.
Even 1 or 2 warm users gives you a testimonial, a case study, and the confidence to go bigger.
2. Send DMs on Instagram, Substack, Twitter, and LinkedIn
People sleep on this one SO hard.
I check my DMs. I check people who offer value. And I’ve hired from cold DMs.
Real example: I posted this LinkedIn post sharing feedback from my husband about my YouTube videos needing more polish. It wasn’t a hiring post.
A guy commented saying he re-edited one of my videos with a before and after sample. Then he cold DM’d me directly.
I hopped on a call with him the next day. Engineering background. Hired him on the spot. He edits my YouTube videos now.
Here’s the formula:
Find someone relevant. Do the work upfront. Show them a sample BEFORE asking for anything. Make it dumb simple for them to say yes.
The OTHER way to use DMs is to have people DM YOU.
I posted this Instagram video and said “comment X to get the free template.” Almost 3,000 comments in a day. All automated with ManyChat on the backend.
You don’t need 3,000 comments. 30 people raising their hand is HUGE when you’re starting out.
You’d be surprised how often people respond to professional, non-salesy DMs. Be a human. Offer value first.
3. Post on Facebook, Skool, and WhatsApp Groups
I neglect this path. And every single time I do it, it works.
Real example: I’m in the n8n Developers Facebook group. I copied a description from my help docs, explained what the automation does, and posted the template in the comments linking to my product.
Didn’t go viral. Didn’t need to.
Every person in a niche Facebook group is HIGHLY qualified. They’re already interested in the exact thing you do.
The mistake people make: they spam and sell without ever contributing.
I answer questions. I share automations with nothing to do with Blotato. I show up as a real member of the community. So when I DO post about my product, people support it.
My last post was in October. I keep telling myself to do this more. Every time I remember, it works. Then I forget again for months.
If you’re reading this and you haven’t posted in your niche communities this month... go do it. Right now.
4. Post Short Content and Videos on Social Media
I’m biased. I think everyone should do this.
I launched a full tutorial on exactly how to do this. Choosing a niche, copying hooks, everything.
The #1 mistake: people try to be too clever with their hooks.
Scroll Instagram. See what’s already going viral. Copy the hook. The title. The positioning. The colors. The font size.
Don’t change a billion things. Look as close to the original viral video as you’re able to. Then put YOUR spin on the content.
For engagement, pick 1 primary platform. After you post, engage for the first hour. If a video gets more views than usual in hour 1, double down on the winner. Reply to every comment on your winner.
You don’t need to engage on every video across every platform. Pick the one taking off.
One website I LOVE for inspiration: Social Growth Engineers. They curate viral TikTok videos. It’s mindblowing to see the creative hooks people use to promote apps and products.
I subscribe to their free newsletter. It’s one of the only newsletters I look forward to reading every week.
5. Post Long-Form YouTube Videos
This is different work than short-form. WAY different.
My short-form is raw, authentic, unscripted. My long-form used to be completely off the cuff too. Now I prep outlines and have a video editor.
The strategy: post videos showcasing your expertise. If you sell AI automations, post a full AI automation course. Tutorial-style content where your product is naturally woven in.
Don’t make the video ABOUT your product. Make it about the problem. Your product shows up as the solution while you’re teaching.
If you’re a consultant, go deep on your area. Financial advisor? Post long-form breakdowns of tax strategies. Your authority builds with each video.
This is a slower burn than short-form. But the people who find your long-form content are MUCH more qualified. They spent 20 minutes with you. They trust you way more than someone who saw a 30-second TikTok.
6. Send Cold Email
I haven’t done this for Blotato. I was so scarred from cold outbound at my 1st startup, I’ve avoided it.
But I see the math.
Use AI and automation to scrape emails. Google Business listings are a goldmine for local businesses. You write the value prop, AI personalizes at scale, and you send.
If your targeting is right and your value prop is right… it’s cost-effective and scalable.
This is definitely a channel I’m interested in exploring.
7. Submit to Directories
Product Hunt is the obvious one. But it’s hard to rank top 3 without an existing user base or community.
But there’s also SubmitJuice, which automates submissions to tons of directories at once.
This is a “set it and forget it” type of task. Submit your product, get backlinks, pick up a few users who are browsing directories.
I don’t think this drives massive traffic on its own. But it compounds with everything else.
More backlinks = better SEO = more organic traffic over time.
8. Revenue Share with Affiliate Partners
Find people who already have your audience. Offer them a cut of every sale they send you.
This works GREAT when you find the right partners. The key: they need to genuinely understand your product and the pain points it solves.
One of my biggest challenges with affiliate and influencer marketing early on... non-technical influencers didn’t understand the API side of Blotato. And the web app didn’t get much love so it remained confusing to use.
As a result, their content came across inauthentic because they couldn’t articulate what it does and many THOUSANDS of dollars totally wasted with negative ROI.
Don’t do what I did! You want affiliates who USE your product and understand the space. Who feel the pain it solves. Who talk about it like it’s their own.
9. Post on Relevant Product Forums
If your product integrates with another product, go hang out where THEIR users are.
Blotato integrates with n8n. So I post templates on the n8n workflow library and contribute to the n8n community forum.
Every template links back to my product.
Every forum answer builds credibility.
This is free, targeted, and compounds over time. The templates stay up FOREVER. People find them months later and become users.
10. Rank in AI SEO for a Specific Keyword
This one I haven’t started. And I’m kicking myself.
The play: target “Competitor + Alternatives” keywords. Like “Buffer alternatives” or “Hootsuite alternatives.”
People searching those keywords are READY to switch. They’re already looking for something new. They’re warmed up, educated, bottom-of-funnel potential users. You don’t need to convince them they need the product category.
You just need to show them YOUR product is better.
I plan to do an SEO push with Claude Code soon. I want to automate 95% of my SEO, then open-source everything I did :)
11. Build Free Public Lead Magnets
I built an AI agents directory in about 1 hour.
It’s a curated spreadsheet.
Thousands of people visit it every month. My Supabase backend kept hitting quota limits from the traffic so I recently upgraded it.
The directory has my product naturally embedded. If someone’s looking for content creation tools, Blotato shows up as “featured.” If they’re looking for customer support tools, it doesn’t show up. Because it’s not relevant.
Your product appears naturally where it fits. No hard sell.
Other lead magnet ideas:
Curate 500 viral hooks for your niche. Give away the first 500 free. Gate the next 500 behind an email signup.
The lead magnet does double duty: drives traffic AND collects emails.
12. Offer Influencers a Webinar or Masterclass
Flip the script. Instead of paying an influencer to promote you, offer to HOST a free high-value webinar for their audience.
You bring the expertise. They bring the audience. Win-win.
You get in front of a warm audience, you demonstrate your expertise, and your product is woven into the demo naturally.
To get an influencer to agree to this, however, you need to be incredibly generous in providing value first. We generally don’t put randos in front of your audience :) engage naturally in their audience/community, give a ton of value, then make the proposal.
13. Reverse Job Board with Upwork
Go on Upwork. Search for people looking for help with the problem your product solves.
Pitch them your tool or service as the solution.
This is a bit more manual. But the people on Upwork are ACTIVELY looking for a solution and willing to pay for it. You’re not convincing anyone they have a problem. They already know.
14. Create a Free Custom GPT
I built a custom GPT called Viral Hooks for Short Form Video.
I had a database of 1,000+ viral hooks I scraped from TikTok. I made it a free lead magnet. Then loaded it into a custom GPT.
Now thousands of people use it. Blotato is mentioned right in the GPT. It drives awareness with zero ongoing effort from me.
If you have any kind of valuable dataset or framework, turn it into a free GPT. It takes an hour. The traffic compounds.
15. Build Local Relationships
Chamber of Commerce. Local Facebook groups. Meetups.
I haven’t done this. I’m introverted. I don’t love talking to people in person.
But if your product or service targets local businesses... this is gold. Show up, build relationships, become the “AI person” in your local network.
Not every business needs to scale globally. Some of the best first customers come from your neighborhood.
The PAID Methods
16. Pay for Leads with Apollo
Apollo lets you search for specific types of people and companies, get their emails, and reach out.
I’ve poured over $100,000 into paid acquisition channels. The ROI has been NEGATIVE. Like, a lot negative.
Be careful with this one. Start small. Test your messaging. Don’t dump your budget into cold outreach before you’ve validated your value prop with free methods first.
17. Facebook Ads Funnel to Landing Page
Classic paid acquisition. Run ads. Send people to a landing page. Convert.
I’ve spent money here. Lost money here. Learned a lot.
If you’re going to do this, start with a tiny budget. Like $10-20/day. Test different hooks and landing pages. Don’t scale until you see positive ROI.
Most people throw money at ads before they’ve figured out their messaging. Fix the messaging with free methods first. THEN amplify with ads.
18. Vibe Code Micro Apps to Drive Traffic
Build a small, free tool related to your product. Something people search for.
Example: Taplio built a free LinkedIn post generator. People search “LinkedIn post generator,” find the free tool, love it, and upgrade to the paid product.
I do this. The tool itself is free. But you’ll pay for vibe coding tools and hosting.
The ROI is wild once you rank for the right keyword. It’s like SEO but you’re ranking a TOOL, not an article.
19. Micro Press Coverage with HARO and ABNewswire
HARO (Help a Reporter Out) lets you answer journalist calls for quotes. I used this at my first startup and got featured in Business Insider.
It’s 1 quote from you, your name, your title, and a link to your product. Free backlinks. Free credibility.
ABNewswire is something I’m testing right now. You pay $80 for a press release targeting a specific keyword. The press release goes out to news outlets and... you start showing up in ChatGPT AI answers for those keywords.
I saw someone on Instagram say they did this and started ranking in AI search results. I’m testing it with “social media scheduling API” as my target keyword.
$80 experiment. We’ll see.
20. Listen to Social Conversations with OGTool
OGTool and similar tools use AI to monitor social media conversations (Reddit, Twitter, forums) and surface the ones relevant to your product.
Every day, you get the top 3 Reddit posts about painpoints you solve. You go in there and reply with a genuine, helpful answer.
The mistake: people try to automate the REPLY too. Don’t.
Use AI to find the conversations. Be a human when you engage. Share something personal. Be a little vulnerable. It stands out like crazy compared to the obviously bot-written responses.
This is on my to-do list. I see the value. I haven’t gotten around to it because I have so many comments coming in every day. I don’t want MORE conversations.
But it works. Especially for SEO and LLM visibility. Your replies get indexed by ChatGPT and other AI engines.
21. Sponsor Niche Newsletters or Micro Influencers
Passionfroot is a platform with a curated directory of influencers. You search by niche, follower count, platforms, and pricing.
You don’t need this platform. You’d get the same result DMing influencers directly. But it streamlines the search.
Where people go wrong: they go after big influencers first.
Someone with 1,000 TikTok followers has the same likelihood of going viral as someone with 1 million. TikTok is democratized like no other platform.
What you want: micro influencers who UNDERSTAND your product and your audience. Not big names who just want the paycheck and will forget about you immediately.
Start micro. Save your budget.
Get 5 customers, not 5 million impressions.
My Honest Pick
If I had to pick 1 method for someone starting from zero...
Short-form video content. Method #4. Every time.
It’s free. It compounds. And it feeds EVERYTHING else on this list.
Your short-form video becomes a forum post. Becomes a lead magnet. Becomes a long-form script. Becomes an affiliate’s content to remix.
I grew from 0 to 1.7+ million followers making content 1 day per week. Solo. No team. No budget. No editor. No paid ads.
You don’t need 1.4 million followers to get 5 customers. You need like... 10 videos.
Pick 3-4 methods from this list. Try them for 30 days. See what works. Double down on the winner.
And remember…
You don’t need 5,000 customers right now.
You need your first 5. Then 50. Then 500.
P.S. Need More Help? 👋
1/ Free AI courses
2/ Free AI prompts
3/ Free AI automations
4/ Free AI vibe coding
5/ Ask me anything @ Friday livestream
6/ Free private community for Women Building AI
7/ I built Blotato to grow 1M+ followers in 1 year
This is the most helpful information in one place I've yet to see. I would have never found all of this on my own. I'm so appreciative of what you put out and so glad I follow you. I always learn from you.
This is a fantastic list. Thank you.