How to get the first 10 paying users for your SaaS in 2026

By Tomáš Cina, CEO at Discury · AI-assisted research, human-edited

Editor's Take — Tomáš Cina, CEO at Discury

What strikes me reading these threads is how often founders mistake "broadcast" for "distribution." I've watched this pattern repeat in the 790+ SaaS-founder threads we've indexed at Discury — a founder ships a product, posts to Product Hunt, gets zero upvotes, and concludes their idea is flawed. The reality is usually that the product is a solution to a problem the founder hasn't actually proven exists in the way they think it does. Copy only matters once the audience can plausibly care, and they only care if you're solving a pain they're currently suffering.

The second trap is the "price as a signal" misconception. Founders often launch at $9/mo, thinking they are reducing friction, when they are actually signaling that their product is a disposable hobby tool. In the 3720+ quotes we've extracted across 53 analyses, the shift from $9 to $29+ isn't just about revenue; it’s about filtering for users who are actually trying to solve a business problem. When a customer pays a meaningful amount, they are exponentially more likely to do the work of onboarding and integrating your tool into their workflow.

If I were starting a B2B outbound motion today, I'd ignore ads entirely. I would spend the first week finding where my ICP is already complaining, reply with genuine help, and only then suggest a call. The founders in this sample invert this, pitching first and helping never, which is why their conversion rates collapse. Traction is built one conversation at a time, not through automated blasts.

The 0 to 10 User Decision Tree

If you are struggling to move from 0 to 10 users, follow this logic to diagnose your bottleneck:

• Do you have high traffic (e.g., 500+ visitors) but zero signups?
  • Diagnosis: Your landing page fails the comprehension test.
  • Action: Simplify the hero copy to state the specific pain you solve, not the features you built.
• Do you have low traffic and zero signups?
  • Diagnosis: You are suffering from a lack of high-intent distribution.
  • Action: Stop "marketing" and start manual, 1-on-1 outreach to people complaining in niche forums.
• Do you have signups but zero paid conversions?
  • Diagnosis: Your price is too low to signal business value, or your ICP is wrong.
  • Action: Raise your price to $29+ to filter for users with a real budget and a burning problem.

Why early SaaS traction is a comprehension problem

Founders often view the lack of traction as a failure of marketing channels, but as u/whereusersdrop noted in a recent r/SaaS thread on early users, if a visitor cannot quickly understand the value proposition, they leave, creating the illusion of a distribution issue. Data from an r/SaaS discussion on getting first users suggests that getting visits from multiple channels without a single signup indicates a breakdown in the comprehension layer. When users land on a page but don't feel enough pressure to try the product, it is rarely due to a lack of traffic volume. This is why u/Subject-Road-184, who shared their journey in an r/SaaS thread, found that even 8 users—with 1 paid customer—provided more actionable feedback than thousands of anonymous page views.

Pricing as a filter for serious business users

Raising prices can be a counter-intuitive tactic for early-stage SaaS, yet it often yields higher-quality signups. u/Senseifc reported in an r/Entrepreneur thread on pricing that raising a subscription from $9/mo to $29/mo shifted their user base from "shoppers" to "problem-solvers." This shift is corroborated by u/Godesslara, who noted in the same discussion that raising prices resulted in an immediate paying customer, proving that lower prices can actually deter serious business users. Founders who keep prices at the "disposable" level often find their trial users asking for features without ever intending to integrate the tool into a production workflow.

Price Point	User Intent	Outcome
$9/mo	Hobbyist/Shopper	High churn, feature requests
$29/mo	Business/Solver	Workflow integration, retention
$55/mo	Enterprise/Decision-maker	High commitment, low support load

How to get first paying users via manual outreach

Ads rarely work for the first 10 users because valid ICP signals are hidden in community discussions rather than broad search terms. In an r/startups thread on B2B tactics, founders noted that selling to other SaaS companies is accessible if you focus on direct, relevant outreach. Using tools like LinkedIn Sales Navigator allows for targeted engagement, but the key is the quality of the message. u/SlothyZ3 noted in the same thread that stealing competitors' customers—who already have a proven problem—is a more efficient path than trying to educate a cold market via PPC.

Why building in public to get first users often fails

Building in public is frequently cited as a growth hack, but it can backfire if the content focuses on the journey rather than the specific pain being solved. u/Subject-Road-184 shared in an r/SaaS thread that while building in public helped them reach 8 users, the jump to 100 users required moving away from broadcasting updates and toward personal, uncomfortable outreach. When founders rely solely on X or Reddit updates, they are essentially shouting into a void. The actual traction comes from the uncomfortable work of messaging people individually. As noted in the r/SaaS thread, the most successful path to the first 100 users involves talking to every single user personally—not via surveys, but through direct conversations that uncover where they found the product and what they were doing before it existed.

How to get first paying users with a two-hour audit

Founders can stop the marketing drift by focusing on high-intent manual outreach. If your conversion rate is zero, the issue is likely the problem-solution fit, not the channel.

1. Identify the pain: Search Reddit trends or specific niche forums for your app's keywords. Locate 30–50 people actively complaining about the workflow you fix.
2. Problem-first outreach: Send a direct, non-pitch message. "I noticed you mentioned X issue—I'm building a tool to handle that, would you be open to a 10-minute feedback call?"
3. Validate commitment: If you are charging $9/mo, raise the price to $29/mo. If they won't pay for the value, they aren't your ICP.
4. Track retention: Use a simple spreadsheet to track where each user came from. If a channel doesn't produce a user who logs in again after two weeks, stop using it immediately.

Where these threads come from

This analysis draws on 15 r/SaaS and r/startups threads (the ones cited inline above). This analysis was compiled with Discury, which aggregates discussion threads across SaaS-adjacent subreddits.

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