Ask HN: Developers–How Did You Get Your First Paying Customers?

I Built Pixoate.

Pixoate is an All in one Productivity Design SAAS powered by AI.

The Product is very Good, it has Photo Editor, Remove BG, PDF Tools and many more such tools, people are liking it.

But I am not on any social Media, neither I like Social Media, How do I promote it, I am Totaly stuck now, I spent 1.5 years building it.

Now I came to know that distribution is the main thing , and i am really bad at it as introvert, dont know how to market it.

Any Idea how I can distribute it, It is bootstrapped so no marketing budget as well, kind of stuck to be honest , no idea on how to scale it.

Can you share your stories how you scaled you SAAS to first 100 customers.

Also Please Share your Reviews as Well for Pixoate.com - Are we missing something in terms of Scalability or monetisation

4 points | by HSK11 3 hours ago

5 comments

  • ls1911 2 hours ago
    For me, paying for featured listings on launch directories (Product Hunt, There's An AI For That, PeerPush and few others) brought immediate, traffic with zero social effort that brought leads to start with.

    Its not magic , you will have to work hard to get the users, but at least you will get some quality leads this way.

    [-]
    • rosennn 2 hours ago
      I think it all depends on your ICP, because launch directories are primarily browsed by other founders and developers Reddit might be a better option.
      [-]
      • HSK11 2 hours ago
        Reddit Posting or comments
    • HSK11 2 hours ago
      Thanks man
  • krm01 1 hour ago
    Close circle. Make something for your friends/family/colleagues. The best first customers are those that, right now, are in your phone's address book.
    [-]
    • HSK11 1 hour ago
      not sure if they will pay subscription, although they are using it
      [-]
      • krm01 1 hour ago
        that's a good signal. Not paying means the value isn't where it should be yet. Focus on that part.
        [-]
        • HSK11 59 minutes ago
          no i already gave them premium subscription for free so that they can test
  • jdebre 1 hour ago
    Watch out for where your users talk. Be timely to the signal. You can use free tools like trysygnal for that.
    [-]
    • HSK11 1 hour ago
      let me see to it.
  • brudgers 18 minutes ago
    One important part of getting paying customers is asking for money.

    The most important part, however, is not making excuses for not doing so.

    Good luck.

  • usamar 1 hour ago
    Through Refrence