I've had to find the first 100 customers for multiple businesses now — a student accommodation marketplace, a short-term rental operation, a 3PL fulfilment company, and an AI platform for hospitality operators. The tactics change; the principles don't.
Do things that don't scale
At ErasmusInn, our first 100 customers came from me and a small team physically walking through European cities, knocking on doors, and convincing landlords to list their rooms. At Oval, the first properties came from my personal network and cold outreach to landlords on Turkish real estate sites. None of this scales. That's the point.
Your first 100 customers are not a marketing problem. They're a hustle problem. You need to be in the room, on the phone, in the inbox — doing whatever it takes to get people to try your product.
Solve the problem before you sell the product
The best early customers come from solving their problem first and formalising the relationship second. At Cendra, our earliest users were operators I'd known from running Oval. I understood their pain because I'd lived it. The conversation wasn't "buy our software" — it was "let us take this operational headache off your plate."
Ask for feedback, not permission
Don't ask potential customers "would you use this?" — put something in front of them and ask "what's broken?" People are terrible at predicting their own behaviour, but they're excellent at telling you what's wrong with something they're actually using.
The first 100 are the hardest
Every customer after the first 100 is easier, because you'll have references, case studies, and word of mouth. But you have to earn those the hard way — one conversation at a time. There's no shortcut, and anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something.