How to Find Your First Users for a New App, Without a Following
Finding your first users for a new app when you have no existing audience comes down to one principle: go where your target users already are, and offer something genuinely useful before asking for anything. This is slower than paid advertising and less scalable than content marketing, but it works, and it works before you have a single follower.
Why the first users are the hardest
The first users are the hardest to find because you have no social proof, no reviews, no word-of-mouth, and no algorithm working in your favour. You have a product and a belief that it is useful. Getting someone to try something new from someone they do not know requires a specific kind of value exchange.
The founders who find their first users quickly almost always do so through direct, personal outreach, not mass marketing, not broad advertising, not hoping people will discover them. They identify specific people who have the problem and reach out to them one at a time.
Where to find them
The best place to find early users is wherever they already gather to talk about the problem your app solves. This might be a subreddit, a Facebook group, a LinkedIn community, a Slack group, an industry forum, or even a specific conference or event. Wherever your target users are discussing the problem, that is where you should be, not promoting your app, but listening and contributing first.
Once you have established some presence in those communities, you have an organic way to mention your product when it is relevant. More importantly, you have context that makes direct outreach feel natural rather than cold.
What direct outreach looks like
Direct outreach for early-stage products is not spam. It is identifying specific people who match your user profile, finding a genuine connection point or common interest, and reaching out personally to ask if they would be willing to try something and give feedback. Many people say no. Some say yes. The ones who say yes are your first users.
Be transparent about what you are doing. Tell them you have built something that might help with a specific problem you know they have, and that you are looking for honest feedback from real users. People respect honesty more than a polished pitch.
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What to do when you have ten users
Ten users who are genuinely engaging with your product are worth more than ten thousand downloads from people who opened the app once and never came back. Talk to them. Find out what is working, what is missing, and who else they know who has the same problem. Your first users are often your best source of referrals, if the product is genuinely useful.
From Passion to Product covers distribution strategy as part of the broader app strategy process. It is free, and the next cohort starts May 25, 2026.
