Video summary

How to Get Your First 10 Customers

Main summary

Key takeaways

Business

Goal: Get your first 10 customers (YC founder playbook)

1) Start with the right buyer channel (don’t default to tools)

Before using tools/channels, answer: Where does your target customer actually spend time?

Build a concrete “buyer-day” view:

  • How often they check email/inbox
  • Whether they attend conferences (and which ones)
  • Whether they’re active on Reddit / LinkedIn
  • Whether they pick up the phone
  • Whether they rely on friends/recommendations
  • Whether they read industry newsletters

Key warning: If you can’t answer these, you haven’t spent enough time with real customers yet.

Example: A YC founder selling into a legacy industry saw poor open/reply rates from email/LinkedIn for months. Switching to in-person trade show outreach led to more closes in 3 days than in 3 months of cold emails.

Business takeaway: “Outbound doesn’t work” is often a channel mismatch, not a product/market fit issue.

2) Source customers from warm connections first (your network is the wedge)

Before outbound tooling, use people you already know.

  • First-degree network: former colleagues, classmates, industry friends (most trust)
  • Second-degree: LinkedIn intros (ask for warm introductions)
    • Example: one founder claimed ~half of their YC-batch closed customers came via LinkedIn intros
  • AI network search tools to expand “one intro away”
    • Example tool: Happenstance (search extended network via natural language)

Intro request framework (make it easy to forward)

Specify:

  • Who you want to meet
  • Why they specifically should care
  • What to say in the forwarded email (pre-write the message)

Pattern: Prospecting tools matter only after 10–20 quality customers; otherwise you’re skipping the “lowest hanging fruit.”

3) “Unscalable” in-person tactics for customers 1–10

Many early customers came from showing up in person (not just Zoom).

  • Fly out and persist
    • Example: one founder flew to an executive buyer 4 weeks in a row; the buyer kept rescheduling, but persistence led to closure
    • Example: another was asked to leave an office most of the time; even a quick Hawaii meeting after being kicked out became a major account
  • Small conferences outperform cold email
    • Principle: conversion from one real conversation at a small, niche conference can beat weeks/months of cold outreach

Mini playbook: conference meeting sprint

  • Set up Calendly with 15-minute slots back-to-back across each conference day
  • Email the attendee list before the event to fill slots
  • Email again during the event for non-openers
  • “Stack meetings” all day to maximize throughput

Micro-events (higher conversion than large events)

  • Founder dinners / happy hours for 6–10 people
  • Typical budget: ~$50–$100 per person
  • Rationale: after dinner, they’re unlikely to ignore you afterward; sometimes they help you proactively

4) Join communities where pain is already being expressed

For early customers, locate public pain and show up as a real person.

Common places:

  • Reddit (threads indexed for years via Google)
  • Facebook groups / Discord / YouTube comments (consumer)
  • Industry forums / trade association message boards (B2B)

Example tactics / case studies:

  • One founder sourced first 10 customers by finding old complaint threads and DM’ing each commenter one-by-one
  • A healthcare founder reportedly did 2–5 posts/day responding to Reddit/Facebook complaints; she faced some subreddit shadowbanning but still got customers

Operating principle: Persistently engaging where users complain compounds over time.

5) Move to real outbound only after you’ve “earned” the message

Once you’re ready to target strangers (customers beyond the first warm network):

Process to find and contact prospects:

  • Build an ICP-matched company list
  • Identify the right decision maker
  • Find contact info
  • Use outbound messaging (with correct framing)

Tools (increasingly relevant as volume increases)

  • Apollo: lead database + email finding + basic sequencer
    • Example: free tier is often enough for early lists
  • Clay: AI research/enrichment workflows to qualify leads (e.g., software used, hiring signals, recent posting)
  • LinkedIn Premium: best source of fresh professional data
    • Example approach: send a connection request without a message, then send a short DM after acceptance
    • Claim: this was someone’s highest converting cold outreach channel and produced their biggest customer

6) Outreach framing beats pure “sales pitch” (but don’t deceive)

For early outreach, many founders used non-sales frames to earn a response:

  • Ask for mentorship/advice
  • Offer a product review
  • Propose a whiteboard session
  • Offer feedback incentives

Concrete examples:

  • Founder asked dozens of CEOs to be their mentor
    • Messages short + real; some became customers
  • Founder talked to 200 salespeople before the product existed
    • Weekly “user research on steroids”
    • Reported rates:
      • ~50% connection request acceptance
      • ~20% of accepted into calls
  • Dev tools founder offered free whiteboarding on agent architecture, then proposed a shared Slack for implementation (architecture happened to require his product)
  • Lawyer-focused founder offered $100–$200/hour (share of their hourly rate) for product feedback
    • Reported response rate: ~30% accepted
    • Benefit: CAC stayed reasonable due to high conversion in a high-contract market

7) Outreach copy rules of thumb (short, clear CTA, human-sounding)

What matters most in cold outreach:

  • Keep it under 75 words
  • Include a single clear call to action (reply? call? demo?)
  • 1-minute human sanity check:
    • Read your draft out loud to a friend
    • Rewrite any lines that sound unlike a real person

Where possible: value before ask (sustainable only at small scale). Examples:

  • API security: run a quick vulnerability scan and share findings
  • Mobile onboarding: walk through the app and give specific suggestions
  • Compliance startup: prepare a short audit note tailored to the prospect’s product

Tradeoff logic: ~20 minutes of prep for ~30 minutes of meeting is reasonable for the first 10 customers.

Follow-up cadence: about 3–4 times over a couple weeks.

8) The “customers 1–50” progression (scaling playbook)

Framework

  • Customers 1–3: from personal network
    • Friends, former colleagues, people one intro away
  • Customers 4–10: from things that don’t scale
    • Fly to customers, Reddit DMs, micro-dinners, personalized LinkedIn DMs, free consulting
  • Customers 10–50: tooling starts to work better
    • Refined pitch + case studies + clearer value prop → then Apollo/Clay/email sequences scale

Why this works: Customers 4–10 succeed because the founder’s personal effort signals commitment—something automation can’t fake.

Key KPIs / metrics mentioned (or implied)

  • Conference/in-person vs outbound:
    • More closes in 3 days than 3 months of cold email (one founder case)
  • LinkedIn warm intros:
    • ~50% of closed customers in a YC batch via LinkedIn intros (one founder claim)
  • Connection/referral efficiency in one founder experiment:
    • ~50% connection request acceptance
    • ~20% conversion from accepted connections to calls
  • Incentive outreach:
    • ~30% acceptance rate to $100–$200/hour feedback offer (lawyer case)
  • Outreach quality guidance:
    • Email length: <75 words
    • Follow-ups: 3–4 times across a couple weeks
  • Community engagement:
    • 2–5 posts/day (healthcare founder)

Presenters / sources

  • Max (visiting partner at Y Combinator) — primary speaker
  • Mentions/sources referenced:
    • YC Startup School (advice referenced, not a separate presenter)
    • Bookface (YC internal social network)
  • Tools/companies mentioned: Happenstance, Apollo, Clay

Original video