How to market a startup to get real customers

How should you market your startup to get customers?
‍
And I mean real customers, not just sign-ups or followers.
People who pay you real money.

Because I know exactly what it feels like when your product is live and you have 0 customers.

Now, it's not that difficult. You only need 2 strategies.
I got my first 5 paying customers in 2 weeks exactly like that.
And I didn't have a big audience or a big budget.

You see, when I started, I thought that getting customers was all about creating content. You know, post some stuff on Instagram or LinkedIn - tell people about my product and they will magically buy my stuff.  

But after building startups for over 10 years, I know that's not true.
I mean, it's kinda true, but not completely. Let me show you what I mean.
I posted on LinkedIn. 100s of posts. I wrote them, hit publish and checked who liked it.

And guess what happened?

A couple of people liked it. And every now and then, somebody bought my stuff. So, it did work. That part is true. But it's slow. 100 posts to get 5 customers is a lot of work. So, getting customers is a 2-parter:

1. You create content to build trust.
2. But you also reach out to people directly, so they actually know what you offer.

It's kind of a push-and-pull thing.

Content brings people to you. But reaching out directly pushes your product right in front of the right people.

And depending on where you are in your startup journey, you’ll go for one of those two strategies to market your startup.

Let's start with strategy 1 - this is for you if you have 0 to 30 customers - basically you just started.

Now, in the beginning, you only do one thing - you reach out to people directly. You don’t post on social media and you don’t run ads.
You just reach out to people.

One by one.

And I mean directly. You pick the one channel where your audience already hangs out and message one person at a time.

From my experience, if you sell B2B, LinkedIn works quite well.
And if you sell B2C, try LinkedIn, Instagram or Reddit.

The good thing is that no matter what channel you go for, the message you send stays the same. In a second, I’m going to show you the exact message you can copy, but remember this - your goal is basically to get people to use your product and pay for it.

You want cashflow.

So, who do you send this message to?
Basically, all the people who would love your product.
People who have the problem you solve.

The important thing is - you don’t reach out to 50 people right away.
Think of it like this: You're not handing out flyers. You're writing a few personal letters. To the people who would love your product.

Before I started reaching out, I made a list of 20 people who would probably like my product and contacted them one by one.
And I started with the ones I already knew - like former co-workers or colleagues - because they already trusted me.

So do this right now:
1. Open the channel where your audience hangs out - LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook - whatever.
2. Write down 20 people who would find your product valuable.
3. Send 5 people this message right now. You can use this structure:

Hey [Name],
‍
I hope you are doing great.

I saw that you [specific thing about them: a post, their role, a problem they mentioned].

I built [your product], which helps [people like them] with [the problem]. Basically it [one sentence on what it does].

I'm reaching out to a few people who deal with this every day.
Would you like to give it a try?

And if it’s not useful, I’d love to hear your feedback.
It would really help me understand what I could improve.

[Your name]

That’s what you do when you have 0-30 customers.

Now, if you want all of this in one plan, I made a free worksheet.
It shows you exactly how to reach out to get your first 10 customers and what to do over the next 30 days - without ads or expensive marketing.

You can download it right there:

Now, once you have your first 30 customers, you add content on top.
But why not go for content right away?

Well, remember my 100 posts I told you about?
Content is slow. And in the beginning, every 20 minutes you spend on a post is 20 minutes you're not talking to someone who could become a customer.

Now, here’s the good news:
You don’t need to post 100 posts. I remember when I started, I made it way too complicated. I posted 3x per day. But there’s really no need to post that much. You basically only need to post 2 kinds of posts per week.

• 1 trust post
• 1 product post

Let me show you what those look like so you can copy them.
Let's start with the trust post:

You basically tell people about you and why you built your startup.
The goal is - well - to build trust. To show people that there's a real person behind the product.

I mean, think about it. If someone has never heard of you and they only see  "Here’s my product, buy it" - what do you think - how many people will click the link?

Nobody, right?

So, here’s your first trust post you can post this week:
"I just got my first 50 users. And honestly, I still can't believe it."
Then you say what you thought you were building when you started, you say you want to take a second to thank everybody who uses it and gives you feedback, and you end with "Thank you!"

You don’t pitch your product, you don’t show a link where they can sign-up. You are just being honest.

And your milestone doesn't have to be big. Just show a small achievement. That’s post number 1 - and you post such a trust post once per week.

Now the product post:

The goal is to show people how your product helps and where they can get it. Here's an example:

"This is the first product I've ever made, and I know it looks unfinished, but I'm genuinely proud of it. It helps you do XYZ. You can test it here for free: Link".

You say it's far from perfect, and you're excited about what comes next.
And then you tell people quickly what it does and point to the product:
A link, a sign-up, a next step.

Now, why are these two posts so strong together?
Because they complement each other.

• The trust post is about you.
• The product post is about what you built.

If you only post a trust post, people like you and they think “cool”, but they don't know what you do. And if you only post about your product, you sound like an ad. And people won’t buy.

Now, I know, when you build your startup, you probably have 20 things on your to-do list. I know how that feels.

So, to make this easier, I created a weekly routine, so I actually do this stuff - and you can just copy it. Here's how I do it:

1. I block one hour every morning for direct outreach. One hour.
Every morning.
2. And I block half an hour on Monday and Wednesday - where I post on social media. One trust post and one product post.

That’s the whole thing. It’s not fancy, but it works.

And keep in mind: staying consistent is way more important than posting
10 times a week. Sure, you can post more, but two posts per week is the baseline. So don’t overcomplicate it.

Start with two posts a week, stick with it, and build from there.

To market your startup, you need 2 strategies. Push and pull.
At the start, you reach out directly to people, because you need customers right now. And once you got your first 30 customers, you add content, so people come to you. That's the whole system.

Now, if you want help with all of that - check out my startup mastermind.

I’ll help you create a marketing plan that fits your specific startup.
Plus, you’ll get personal coaching from me and you can talk to other founders to see what worked for them.

You can join right here: