You are here because you need to answer these questions:

  • How do I get my first customers?
  • How do we get more leads to our site?
  • Do you have any tips for leadgen / growth for startups?

The answer is hidden inside this interview with Gustaf Alströmer and i’m posting here for preservation and added thoughts.

5 Steps to Building your Audience:

  1. Figure out who is the buyer/decision-maker that will pull out the credit card / sign the bill for your product.
    • This is hard because you have to aimlessly search for companies you THINK should be your customer.
    • If you’re building B2C then you have to share with every person you know, and essentially find influencers that would fit your audience
  2. Fill a Google Spreadsheet with 100 LinkedIn profiles that fit your product audience. Use a tool like Hunter to figure out their email-addresses. You can check the email format on their website if there is no response.
  3. Email them a plain-text email saying you are the founder of your company and you are reaching out a small group of people who you think would be perfect or the product you are building and you ask them to try it. You could also include a short gif/video (like really short) of how it works.
  4. Use email software that allows you to check open-rates and click-through rates. If your email is opened many times it means its being forwarded around/getting attention. Email again if no-one responds.
  5. Expect about 40% to open your email. 5-10% to click on whatever link you included and less than 5% to try your product. If that works, then you just have do the same thing 20x and you have 100 users. Sending too few emails will be your biggest mistake.

Example email to Buyers/Decision-makers:

Link To Text

I am the founder of [INSERT COMPANY NAME] and I am reaching out to a small group of people who we think would be perfect for what we are building.

[Product X] does [ABC] and helps companies succeed at [XYZ].

Attached is a short GIF showing how it works.

We would love to have you try out the product, and are open to any feedback that would help your company be more successful.

Feel free to signup ( www.example.com/signup ) and send any questions you might have!

Being an entrepreneur is about solving a problem for your audience. Finding the audience is the first hard problem.