Max, a visiting partner at Y Combinator, addresses a common challenge faced by startup founders: how to find and engage their first 10 customers. He emphasizes that before using any sales tools or channels, founders must deeply understand where their target customers spend their time and how they prefer to be reached. While cold emails and LinkedIn outreach are common and sometimes effective, especially for buyers who are computer-centric, many customers in legacy or hands-on industries do not engage primarily through these channels. Instead, founders should investigate their customers’ daily routines, preferred communication methods, and community hangouts to tailor their approach effectively.
The initial customers almost always come from the founder’s warm network—friends, former colleagues, classmates, or people one introduction away. Trust plays a crucial role in early sales, as early adopters are betting on the founder as much as the product. Founders are encouraged to exhaust their personal and extended networks, including leveraging LinkedIn introductions and AI-powered network search tools, before turning to cold outreach. Max warns against prematurely relying on automated prospecting tools, which are more useful once a startup has 10 to 20 quality customers.
A surprisingly effective tactic shared by many founders is showing up in person. Whether attending industry trade shows, flying out to meet prospects repeatedly, or hosting small, intimate events like dinners or happy hours, face-to-face interactions build trust and convert better than remote or automated outreach. Small conferences and micro-events provide high conversion rates, and founders are advised to schedule back-to-back meetings and actively engage attendees before and during these events. For consumer products, engaging in online communities where customers express pain points—such as Reddit, Facebook groups, or Discord—can also yield early customers through genuine participation and direct outreach.
When founders do move to outbound outreach, Max highlights several useful tools like Apollo, Clay, and LinkedIn Premium for building prospect lists and finding contact information. However, the framing of outreach messages matters more than the exact wording. Approaching prospects with requests for advice, mentorship, product reviews, or offering free consulting sessions can open doors more effectively than direct sales pitches. Founders should keep messages concise, include clear calls to action, and ensure the tone sounds human and authentic. Providing personalized value upfront, such as a quick audit or tailored suggestions, can significantly improve response rates, even if it requires extra effort.
Max concludes by framing the customer acquisition journey in stages: the first 1-3 customers come from personal networks; customers 4-10 require unscalable, manual efforts like in-person visits and personalized outreach; and beyond 10 customers, founders can start leveraging scalable tools and refined messaging. The key advantage early-stage founders have is their personal involvement and willingness to do the hard, unscalable work that larger companies won’t. Success in this phase depends on showing genuine care and persistence, which builds trust and lays the foundation for growth.
