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My First MillionHow We Got Our First 100 Customers (No Bulls**t, Specific Details) (#534)
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CHAPTERS
- 0:00 – 2:30
Framing the Question: First 100 Customers
Sam Parr and Shaan Puri set up a Q&A on how they got their first 100 customers across their businesses. Shaan explains that the start matters more than later growth advice, and they agree to trade stories and name each method.
- •Sam has grown several businesses from $1M to $10M in revenue and one well beyond that
- •Shaan says getting to $10 in revenue matters more at the start than getting to $10M
- •They plan to label the method behind each business's first customers
- •The episode is about literal tactics rather than general advice
- 2:30 – 6:39
Host an Event: Bunk and Piggybacking on Craigslist
Sam describes Bunk, a roommate matching site for San Francisco. He used Craigslist ads for individual rooms to draw seekers to events at landlords' apartments. Shaan asks about the event format and recalls Sam's Pizza and 40s events.
- •Craigslist ads for one room in a four-bedroom apartment pulled in about 10,000 visitors a week
- •Events at landlords' apartments let applicants team up to rent a place
- •Sam earned money from both tenants and landlords
- •The ads were transparent about what the event was
- •Pizza and 40s: Costco pizza and a speaker who had to finish a 40-ounce beer
- 6:39 – 12:53
The Floor-to-Floor Method: Selling Sushi in Skyscrapers
Shaan describes launching a delivery-only sushi business in Denver and getting customers by going floor to floor in an office tower. He learned to target the front-desk gatekeeper, ask a yes-or-no catering question, and offer a free sample tray. The business was profitable in month one, but they quit after three months and pivoted away.
- •A delivery-only commissary kitchen rented at $19 an hour avoided a 10-year lease
- •The front desk or office manager is the local influencer to win over
- •Opening with a question about office catering beat offering sushi directly
- •A free sample tray was a risk-free offer
- •They quit in month three after realizing they were in the wrong business
- 12:53 – 14:21
The Magnet Method: Craigslist Book Club
Sam briefly mentions a business book club that drew 10,000 email signups from a Craigslist ad. Shaan proposes names for the methods so far and calls the book club a magnet because its niche filter attracts the right people.
- •A Craigslist ad for a business book club led to 10,000 email signups
- •The first two methods are labeled piggybacking or host an event, and door to door
- •The magnet works because 5% of people say hell yes to a niche
- •Sam jokes that he was the only one who read the book
- 14:21 – 19:32
The Made to Stick Method: Roommates Infographics
Sam explains how the Roommates app got its first users with neighborhood infographics, applying the idea that niches make riches. He built the jokes from Yelp reviews and local brands, and about five infographics brought roughly 100,000 users.
- •The idea came from Made to Stick and the principle of niches making riches
- •Infographics profiled typical roommates of neighborhoods in cities like San Francisco and Chicago
- •Jokes and brand names came from Yelp, and tagging local brands helped sharing
- •People shared them with a 'that's so me' reaction, creating tribe versus tribe dynamics
- •About five infographics produced around 100,000 users
- 19:32 – 26:08
The No-Risk Offer: Coal Microbes
Shaan describes his Australian clean-energy startup, which used microbes to turn coal into natural gas. To get past friction and distrust, they offered landowners with stranded coal a no-risk deal. He cites Hormozi and Main Street as users of similar offers, and the deal eventually died despite the customers.
- •Microbes were meant to decompose underground coal into natural gas
- •They targeted landowners with stranded, uneconomic coal
- •The offer was at their cost, with a share of upside only if it worked
- •Hormozi's gym marketing offer and Main Street's R&D tax credit offer follow the same logic
- •One customer renegotiated into a $5 million deal, but the project later fizzled
- 26:08 – 30:30
Viral Content: HustleCon Blogging and Reddit
Sam explains how he launched HustleCon in about six weeks with speaker blog posts shared on Reddit and Hacker News. An email-gated website fed subscribers into a drip cycle of posts. He also admits mistakes like treating it as a TED-style event with cheap tickets.
- •First event brought $60K in revenue and about $50K profit, with later years higher
- •A post on each speaker was shared on relevant subreddits and Hacker News
- •Visitors had to give an email before seeing ticket details
- •Glowing speaker articles encouraged speakers and their companies to share
- •The blogging produced the first 10,000 email subscribers
- 30:30 – 35:36
Use the Personal Story: Shepherd and Product Hunt
In a sponsor-related segment, Shaan walks through how Marshall launched Shepherd with a teaser tweet and a personal-story newsletter that got an 11% click rate. He then describes how Ryan Hoover grew Product Hunt through hand-to-hand replies and guest posts about reaching customer milestones.
- •Marshall teased the launch on Twitter before explaining it in his newsletter
- •The newsletter told a personal story about cutting costs by hiring overseas
- •It had an 11% click rate versus a typical 1-3% for an ad
- •Ryan Hoover replied personally to tweets for hours each morning
- •Hoover offered ready-written guest posts on how he reached customer milestones
- 35:36 – 39:08
Pissing in the Pond: Targeting a Hyper-Obsessed Niche
Shaan explains going after small, obsessed communities rather than the mass market. For his e-commerce brand he shared an underdog story in a niche Facebook group and made about $28,000 in month one with little ad spend.
- •Boiling the ocean means chasing the mass market, which rarely works early on
- •A Facebook group of about 5,000 people comparing products was the target
- •Sharing ups and downs in the founding story made people root for the brand
- •The first 100 customers matter because obsessed niche members spread the word
- 39:08 – 41:06
Booth Babes Method: Beer Hunt Scavenger Hunt
Shaan describes the Beer Hunt app, a Foursquare-style app for beers that he admits he was the wrong person to build. His team dressed in lederhosen at a craft beer festival and ran a scavenger hunt that collected 1,400 emails and about 700 downloads.
- •The idea came from a hackathon app that checked in beers by scanning labels
- •The mass market didn't care, so they went to a craft beer tasting festival
- •The team dressed like Oktoberfest to stand out
- •A branded scavenger hunt collected emails of 1,400 craft beer fans
- •About 700 of those became the first app downloads
- 41:06 – 44:51
Strip Club Stories Detour
Prompted by the image of Shaan at a brewery, Sam and Shaan trade stories about their only visits to strip clubs. Sam's was an uncomfortable airport trip with Neville, and Shaan's ended with a friend's 'wand chooses the wizard' line.
- •Sam went to an airport strip club in Austin and mostly ordered fries
- •Shaan went around age 22 via a free-drinks limo offer
- •His friend picked the least attractive stripper, saying the wand chooses the wizard
- •Neither has been back to a strip club
- 44:51 – 48:16
Launchpad Method: Trends.co Pre-Sales
Sam explains how he launched the paid research newsletter Trends with a simple Gumroad page and pre-sales to engaged Hustle subscribers. He called the first customers to shape the product. Shaan calls this a launchpad built from an audience, and Sam says cold outreach worked for Hampton.
- •A roughly 400-word story page on Gumroad offered $100 lifetime access
- •Facebook ads to the page produced $60,000 in pre-sales
- •He emailed 300 engaged Hustle users and called all 100 who signed up
- •Sam admits this is less actionable without an audience
- •For Hampton he used cold DMs and emails, relying on his reputation
- 48:16 – 52:46
The David Blaine Method: Milk Road Stunt and Build in Public
Shaan notes the obvious methods they skipped, such as ads and cold outreach. He then explains the David Blaine method he used for Milk Road: a public $1M crypto wallet he'd try to grow to $10M. Sam ties it to building in public, and the episode ends with a joke about a second strip club trip.
- •Ads and cold outreach are common traditional methods they didn't use
- •Shaan put $1M in a public wallet to try turning it into $10M, which fell to about $350K
- •People subscribe to watch someone win or lose, giving the stunt a storyline with stakes
- •Sam links it to build in public, as with Buffer, ConvertKit and Pat Flynn
- •Shaan says a hero, goal, obstacle and stakes make the story compelling
