The quiet work behind your first 100 users

Start with a place, not an audience The phrase “find your first users” makes the work sound like a search problem. Usually it is a proximity problem. The right people already gather somewhere: a narrow community, a shared workflow, a spreadsheet passed between peers, or the replies beneath a frustrating announcement. Your job is not to broadcast louder. It is to understand that place well enough to make something unmistakably useful inside it. Make the promise smaller A young product earns attention by being specific. Choose one repeated moment, make it dramatically easier, and describe the result in the words your earliest users already use. Turn every release into a doorway Updates are not disposable announcements. A clear release note can answer a search, demonstrate momentum, and connect a reader to the product behind it. Publish the context, the change, and the reason it matters.