How to Get Your First 100 Users for a Side Project (2026)

The first hundred users are the hardest and the most useful. They’re the people who tell you what’s broken, what’s unclear and what’s worth charging for. This guide is a hands-on way to find them for a side project or early product in 2026, without ads.

TL;DR

• Get the first 20 users by hand, one conversation at a time. It doesn’t scale and that’s fine.
• Go where the problem is already being discussed, and help before you promote.
• Make the product easy to try in under five minutes, with no call.
• Use launch boards, communities and search for the next 80.
• Track where each user came from, and double down on the channel that works.

Decide who a “user” is

A signup isn’t a user. For the first hundred, count people who reached the first useful moment: they created the thing, sent the invoice, saved the note. Pick one action that proves the product did its job, and measure that.

Users 1–20: find them by hand

Search for people who describe the problem in their own words: on X, in subreddits, in forums and in Slack or Discord communities. Read the thread, add something useful, and only then mention what you built, if it fits. Direct messages should be short, specific to the person, and ask for feedback rather than a signup.

• Write down the exact phrases your customers use for the problem.
• Search those phrases weekly and reply with something helpful.
• Message people one at a time. Mention what they said and why your tool might help.
• Offer to set it up for them. Watching them use it teaches you more than any analytics.

Make trying it effortless

People give a new product about five minutes. Remove everything that costs those minutes:

• Let people see value before they enter payment details, and ideally before they create an account.
• Offer a sample project or demo data so the product isn’t empty on first visit.
• Put a short demo video or GIF at the top of the landing page.
• Give an obvious way to ask for help, and answer quickly.

Users 21–100: add repeatable channels

Launch boards and directories

List the product on weekly boards and tool directories. ShipX gives every launch a full week and ranks makers with fewer than 1,000 followers against each other, which suits a small project. Directories bring slow, steady discovery, and each listing is a page that keeps working.

Communities

Share a build story rather than an announcement: what you made, what surprised you, what didn’t work. Follow each community’s self-promotion rules, and be present in the comments.

Search content

Write about the problem your customers search for: comparisons, how-to guides and templates. One useful page can send visitors for years, and every page is another place for the product to be found.

Integrations and templates

If your product works alongside tools your customers already use, a simple integration, extension or shareable template can bring in people who weren’t searching for you.

Measure what matters

Tag every link you share with its source (for example ?ref=launch-board). Once a week, write down:

• Visitors by source.
• How many reached your first-value moment.
• What the people who did that have in common.

Put your time into the one or two channels that produce activated users, not just visitors.

Common mistakes

• Chasing traffic before fixing onboarding.
• Joining ten communities and posting nothing useful in any.
• Giving up on a channel after one try. Most need three or four attempts to learn what works.
• Ignoring the users you already have. Reply to their emails and ask what nearly stopped them.

Key takeaways

• Define a user as someone who reached value, not someone who signed up.
• Win the first 20 by hand, then add repeatable channels.
• Make the product easy to try without a call.
• Track sources and keep what works.

Looking for a place to start? Launch your project on ShipX and send people to a page that’s ready for them.