How companies got their first 100 clients
From guerrilla marketing to piggybacking, why having a good product or service is not enough, and even popular companies had to get their hands dirty to promote themselves
I made this list after some research on google on how famous company got their first customers, all found anecdotes are linked. This is not an exhaustive list, and those steps are more useful at the beginning when people don’t know your company/product. Most of them cannot be used to scale or growth, they are only useful at the initial stage. Moreover, the references are more from IT based solution, but guerrilla marketing mentality could be easily adapted to the healthcare sector other specific markets.
All degenerated comic are generated with StableDiffusion, degenerated on purpose.
Step 1: Tell your family, friends, colleagues and schoolmates
Many popular company (startup in those days) literally started with their firsts customers among their circle of friends, colleagues and schoolmates.
This seems to be the case of Strava, Lyft, and even Facebook. However, be careful, friends and people who know you might not be a good representative niche preparing you to scale up. Sometimes you friend might be too geeky or too with engineer-background, as depicted in the HBO sitcom “Silicon Valley”, or the other way around being biased by personal prejudices towards you as told by Sam Jam (CEO of Patreon).
Step 2: “Piggybacking” Reach specific unknown people directly via email, social media DM and phone calls
It sounds a bit spammy (and actually it is), but many high profile did this at the beginning. Youtube is claimed to have hunted individually many Myspace users, and AirBnB went after authors of posts on Craiglist about renting. Substantially, without being invasive, it is a good idea to approach people using a service similar to the one you want to provide and let them know that it exists. I am often approached on Linkedin by people who wants to make a website or develop some code for me. This lacks a bit of understanding instead. As those are services we can directly do. Facebook literally crafted different marketing strategies on how to use mails within Harvard. Don’t just annoy people via linkedin or emails.
Moreover, The audience targeted directly was not random. The idea is often referred as “Piggybacking”. Simply said, the greatest way to benefit from the expansion of another network is to ease a user’s complaint on that network. Taking back the examples above, Youtube approached Myspace users, and AirBnB approached Craiglist users. They did not go random.
Step 3: Post kindly on online platforms
Again there is a thin line with promoting, asking opinion and spamming, but it seems in subtle ways this has been the way of some companies.
In practice, you should mention your product/idea in specific platforms where potential users hang out: e.g. Reddit, Product Hunt, Hacker News, university forums, and events (so, yes also offline platforms).
Dropbox’ founder Drew Houston reported to approach HackerNews, Reddit and Digg.
Step 4 : Guerrilla Marketing and influencers
In guerrilla marketing, the focus is on creating memorable and engaging experiences that generate buzz and word-of-mouth promotion. It often involves using non-traditional marketing channels, such as street art, flash mobs, viral videos, public stunts, or interactive experiences. The goal is to create a strong emotional response, surprise, or intrigue the audience, leading them to talk about the brand and share the message with others. Guerrilla marketing campaigns are typically designed to be cost-effective, as they rely on creativity and ingenuity rather than large advertising budgets. By leveraging unconventional tactics and leveraging social media and online platforms, guerrilla marketing can reach a wide audience without heavy financial investment. Asking for a cameo or testimonial is an old no-brainer to increase the effectiveness.
Although, not strictly influencers Tinder openly admitted the use of several Guerrilla marketing technique, as going to party and convince personally attractive people to sign up to their app.
Step 5: Physical Guerriglia marketing (flyers, posters, stickers, etc)
This might be a bit more expensive than youtube ads, and also more time consuming. It is however more ideal for products/services that require customers to be local as food delivery or local services. It is nevertheless, effective as it allows to own a space (literally).
Those steps are not meant to be an exhaustive list, after all I am not a marketing expert. It is just to drive your attention that famous startups (even those strictly hi-tech) did not get their customers just sitting on a chair. Actions need to be taken otherwise nothing will happen.