u/Basic_Tumbleweed_516

The thing slowing you down while bringing in initial users might be nailing down your ideal users.

Because you don’t reach that clarity until you have real people using your product.

What you should be doing is finding desperate people,

Not the niched audience but the people who are actually frustrated

And they could be anyone,
Anyone losing sleep over the problem you solved.

Bring them in, engage actively and iterate countless times.

This gives you clarity,
Both on the product and audience side.

But when you lead with a concrete sect of audience,
And come back finding those same people

It is likely that the audience has evolved.

Which becomes 10x harder to find them.

And even those who use your product out of sheer desperation might not use it in the way you built it.

For example - assume you solve a problem and build feature A as your primary solution and feature B and C as your secondary,

But your users are more engaged in those secondary features.

This redefines the purpose of the product,

As your audience just told you what your real product is. Listen.

Now before you spend another day refining your ICP, find someone who actually needs you.

Because that matters more than anything else.

The thing slowing you down while bringing in initial users might be nailing down your ideal users.

Because you don’t reach that clarity until you have real people using your product.

What you should be doing is finding desperate people,

Not the niched audience but the people who are actually frustrated

And they could be anyone,
Anyone losing sleep over the problem you solved.

Bring them in, engage actively and iterate countless times.

This gives you clarity,
Both on the product and audience side.

But when you lead with a concrete sect of audience,
And come back finding those same people

It is likely that the audience has evolved.

Which becomes 10x harder to find them.

And even those who use your product out of sheer desperation might not use it in the way you built it.

For example - assume you solve a problem and build feature A as your primary solution and feature B and C as your secondary,

But your users are more engaged in those secondary features.

This redefines the purpose of the product,

As your audience just told you what your real product is. Listen.

Now before you spend another day refining your ICP, find someone who actually needs you.

Because that matters more than anything else.

The thing slowing you down while bringing in initial users might be nailing down your ideal users.

Because you don’t reach that clarity until you have real people using your product.

What you should be doing is finding desperate people,

Not the niched audience but the people who are actually frustrated

And they could be anyone,

Anyone losing sleep over the problem you solved.

Bring them in, engage actively and iterate countless times.

This gives you clarity,

Both on the product and audience side.

But when you lead with a concrete sect of audience,

And come back finding those same people

It is likely that the audience has evolved.

Which becomes 10x harder to find them.

And even those who use your product out of sheer desperation might not use it in the way you built it.

For example - assume you solve a problem and build feature A as your primary solution and feature B and C as your secondary,

But your users are more engaged in those secondary features.

This redefines the purpose of the product,

As your audience just told you what your real product is. Listen.

Now before you spend another day refining your ICP, find someone who actually needs you.

Because that matters more than anything else.

The thing slowing you down while bringing in initial users might be nailing down your ideal users.

Because you don’t reach that clarity until you have real people using your product.

What you should be doing is finding desperate people,

Not the niched audience but the people who are actually frustrated

And they could be anyone,
Anyone losing sleep over the problem you solved.

Bring them in, engage actively and iterate countless times.

This gives you clarity,
Both on the product and audience side.

But when you lead with a concrete sect of audience,
And come back finding those same people

It is likely that the audience has evolved.

Which becomes 10x harder to find them.

And even those who use your product out of sheer desperation might not use it in the way you built it.

For example - assume you solve a problem and build feature A as your primary solution and feature B and C as your secondary,

But your users are more engaged in those secondary features.

This redefines the purpose of the product,

As your audience just told you what your real product is. Listen.

Now before you spend another day refining your ICP, find someone who actually needs you.

Because that matters more than anything else.

The thing slowing you down while bringing in initial users might be nailing down your ideal users.

Because you don’t reach that clarity until you have real people using your product.

What you should be doing is finding desperate people,

Not the niched audience but the people who are actually frustrated

And they could be anyone,
Anyone losing sleep over the problem you solved.

Bring them in, engage actively and iterate countless times.

This gives you clarity,
Both on the product and audience side.

But when you lead with a concrete sect of audience,
And come back finding those same people

It is likely that the audience has evolved.

Which becomes 10x harder to find them.

And even those who use your product out of sheer desperation might not use it in the way you built it.

For example - assume you solve a problem and build feature A as your primary solution and feature B and C as your secondary,

But your users are more engaged in those secondary features.

This redefines the purpose of the product,

As your audience just told you what your real product is. Listen.

Now before you spend another day refining your ICP, find someone who actually needs you.

Because that matters more than anything else.

The thing slowing you down while bringing in initial users might be nailing down your ideal users.

Because you don’t reach that clarity until you have real people using your product.

What you should be doing is finding desperate people,

Not the niched audience but the people who are actually frustrated

And they could be anyone,
Anyone losing sleep over the problem you solved.

Bring them in, engage actively and iterate countless times.

This gives you clarity,
Both on the product and audience side.

But when you lead with a concrete sect of audience,
And come back finding those same people

It is likely that the audience has evolved.

Which becomes 10x harder to find them.

And even those who use your product out of sheer desperation might not use it in the way you built it.

For example - assume you solve a problem and build feature A as your primary solution and feature B and C as your secondary,

But your users are more engaged in those secondary features.

This redefines the purpose of the product,

As your audience just told you what your real product is. Listen.

Now before you spend another day refining your ICP, find someone who actually needs you.

Because that matters more than anything else.

The thing slowing you down while bringing in initial users might be nailing down your ideal users.

Because you don’t reach that clarity until you have real people using your product.

What you should be doing is finding desperate people,

Not the niched audience but the people who are actually frustrated

And they could be anyone,
Anyone losing sleep over the problem you solved.

Bring them in, engage actively and iterate countless times.

This gives you clarity,
Both on the product and audience side.

But when you lead with a concrete sect of audience,
And come back finding those same people

It is likely that the audience has evolved.

Which becomes 10x harder to find them.

And even those who use your product out of sheer desperation might not use it in the way you built it.

For example - assume you solve a problem and build feature A as your primary solution and feature B and C as your secondary,

But your users are more engaged in those secondary features.

This redefines the purpose of the product,

As your audience just told you what your real product is. Listen.

Now before you spend another day refining your ICP, find someone who actually needs you.

Because that matters more than anything else.

The thing slowing you down while bringing in initial users might be nailing down your ideal users.

Because you don’t reach that clarity until you have real people using your product.

What you should be doing is finding desperate people,

Not the niched audience but the people who are actually frustrated

And they could be anyone,
Anyone losing sleep over the problem you solved.

Bring them in, engage actively and iterate countless times.

This gives you clarity,
Both on the product and audience side.

But when you lead with a concrete sect of audience,
And come back finding those same people

It is likely that the audience has evolved.

Which becomes 10x harder to find them.

And even those who use your product out of sheer desperation might not use it in the way you built it.

For example - assume you solve a problem and build feature A as your primary solution and feature B and C as your secondary,

But your users are more engaged in those secondary features.

This redefines the purpose of the product,

As your audience just told you what your real product is. Listen.

Now before you spend another day refining your ICP, find someone who actually needs you.

Because that matters more than anything else.

The thing slowing you down while bringing in initial users might be nailing down your ideal users.

Because you don’t reach that clarity until you have real people using your product.

What you should be doing is finding desperate people,

Not the niched audience but the people who are actually frustrated

And they could be anyone,
Anyone losing sleep over the problem you solved.

Bring them in, engage actively and iterate countless times.

This gives you clarity,
Both on the product and audience side.

But when you lead with a concrete sect of audience,
And come back finding those same people

It is likely that the audience has evolved.

Which becomes 10x harder to find them.

And even those who use your product out of sheer desperation might not use it in the way you built it.

For example - assume you solve a problem and build feature A as your primary solution and feature B and C as your secondary,

But your users are more engaged in those secondary features.

This redefines the purpose of the product,

As your audience just told you what your real product is. Listen.

Now before you spend another day refining your ICP, find someone who actually needs you.

Because that matters more than anything else.

A month ago I helped a founder with getting early users for his product.

After he told me about his failure in cold outreaching ideal users,

I asked him to set up a meeting where he briefed me about his product in detail.

And as soon as the meeting ended,

I took all my notes to ChatGPT and further briefed it about the product.

From the problem it solves to the solution it offers and the audience it serves - everything.

Since it was a project management tool,

I asked it to generate prompts/keywords that need to be searched across all social platforms,

According to the product context provided to you.

This landed me in conversations where the problem my prospect solved is being discussed aggressively.

And now the only thing left was outreaching,

“Without revealing the name of the product.”

If you do, it will feel like an ad rather than a real conversation.

And all this works because,

We already found the most frustrated users which automatically lowers his guard down to genuine help.

I carried out this campaign for a week and connected my client with:

> PMs
> Other founders
> Small startups

All in desperate need of an integrated project management tool.

No tools
No ad spend
No automations

Just 20 mins of conversation with your favorite LLM and finding the right people + building real relationships, manually.

Founders are the greatest marketers and here's the proof:

After posting targeted content for a long time,

A founder reached out to me,

asking for help on outreaching tactics.

We talked long about the product and the problem it solves,

But the way he explained his product was like a typical builder - “Boring”

Finally we decided to set up a call for a live demo.

And found out the product itself was built with enough sophistication.

He showed me the existing features and the ones upcoming as well,

But this wasn’t when my curiosity peaked.

Without giving a solid feedback,

I got back to him after a few days.

And after we reconnected,

Everything changed.

When it was my time to be honest about the product,

I critiqued it severely.

The business fundamentals were off,

And finding a specific audience for such a wide product will be lethal for positioning.

But with every tougher question,

He abandoned his builder personality and became a problem obsessed maniac.

After enough instigation,

He laid out every single detail of:

\> Market

\> Competitor

\> Potential gap

With such simplicity in that brief period,

Which made me feel like he was even better than me.

Rather than talking about everything that bores a user,

He articulated precisely what the product meant for him and the market.

That day I realized the founder’s A game when it comes to product communication,

Which reflected quite clearly in the pressure situation making me believe that:

- No copywriter

- No marketer

- No salesperson

Can articulate such impeccably as the founder himself.

It is the founder who is aware of the original positioning of the product he spent years building and perfecting.

A month ago I helped a founder with getting early users for his product.

After he told me about his failure in cold outreaching ideal users,

I asked him to set up a meeting where he briefed me about his product in detail.

And as soon as the meeting ended,

I took all my notes to ChatGPT and further briefed it about the product.

From the problem it solves to the solution it offers and the audience it serves - everything.

Since it was a project management tool,

I asked it to generate prompts/keywords that need to be searched across all social platforms,

According to the product context provided to you.

This landed me in conversations where the problem my prospect solved is being discussed aggressively.

And now the only thing left was outreaching,

“Without revealing the name of the product.”

If you do, it will feel like an ad rather than a real conversation.

And all this works because,

We already found the most frustrated users which automatically lowers his guard down to genuine help.

I carried out this campaign for a week and connected my client with:

> PMs
> Other founders
> Small startups

All in desperate need of an integrated project management tool.

No tools
No ad spend
No automations

Just 20 mins of conversation with your favorite LLM and finding the right people + building real relationships, manually.

VCs look for signal,

But founders reach out when

> Pressure Increases

> Runway depletes

> Burnout from solo building

Founders presume,

An unshakable belief system is what’s needed by the VCs

But what they actually look for:

‘Undeniable proof of moving forward without capital’

As they confuse their venture stage,

Resulting in mismatched outreach to the wrong VCs.

Getting a VC’s attention isn’t about visibility,

It’s about credibility.

During those days of pre or post launch,

Getting users for your product is the hardest job to carry out.

And being a beginner you need to push hard than the average builder,

Focusing on:

1. Posting content 
2. Targeted outreach

At the same time.

But if I had to choose one, cold outreach is the way and here's how you do it:

1.Ideal audience

Before writing your first message,

Lock in your ideal group of people you should be selling.

Not engineers
Not marketers
Not founders

But becoming specific in accordance with the painful problem you solve. 

2. AI briefing

After locking your ideal audience,

Open any of the LLM you use and brief your product to it by providing every single detail from:

Problem it solves ➡️ Solution ➡️  Audience it serves ➡️  How it’s better than existing services

This helps the AI to be in sync with product development and sales.

3. Prompt generation

Once the briefing is completed,

Ask it to generate prompts to be searched across social platforms like:

• Reddit (primarily)
• X
• Linkedin 
• Substack

 

These search prompts/keywords help you land in specific conversations where the problem you solved is being discussed aggressively.

4. Targeted outreach

Since you’ve found your highly frustrated (potential) user,

Outreaching them by offering your unique solution provides a higher reply rate.

Because of the pain the guard is already down,

As you offer genuine help to their contemporary painful problem.

And if you really offer an airtight solution,

Congratulations - you have found yourself a loyal user further leading your word of mouth for your product.