How to find your first SaaS users by starting as a consultant

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 blame the acquisition channel when the real issue is the lack of a pre-existing relationship. I've watched this pattern repeat in conversations with SaaS operators in the 790+ threads we've indexed at Discury — a founder ships a clever, punchy cold-email variant, sees zero replies, and concludes "cold email doesn't work for us," when the bottleneck was always the lack of trust. Copy only matters once the audience can plausibly care about the problem you are solving.

The second trap is the "stealth" mindset. Founders often treat their first users like a secret to be protected, when the real signal is whether a human being has a reason to pay for a solution right now. When the trigger—a project deadline, a regulatory change, or a broken workflow—is fresh, the "how do I find users" question becomes trivial. When there is no trigger, no amount of growth hacking rescues you.

If I were starting a B2B motion today, I would spend the first month acting as a high-end consultant for a single client. I would build a solution I can personally defend as "this person has this specific problem right now," and only then write the code for the product. the founders in this sample invert the order, and Reddit or HN threads amplify that inversion because "growth hacks" are more shareable than the boring reality of list-building and manual client service.

Freelance-to-SaaS: Why the first paid solution matters

One founder in an HN discussion on side projects highlights that the most reliable path to revenue is often the most manual one. Developers who transition from freelancing to product ownership possess a distinct advantage: they have already been paid to solve a problem that someone values enough to cut a check for.

"I have seen more success from freelancers -> very profitable side projects than any other form. It makes sense: you're being paid real money to provide a custom solution to a problem." — u/michaelbuckbee, HN thread on side project ideas

This approach ensures that the "first user" is not just a free trial sign-up, but a stakeholder in your success. When you are paid for a custom solution, you gain an intimate understanding of the edge cases and workflow nuances that a generic SaaS product often misses. By leveraging existing tools before committing to a full-blown SaaS architecture, you can test the viability of your solution without the overhead of enterprise-grade infrastructure. The goal is to move from a "freelance" mindset—where you are trading time for money—to a "product" mindset where you are trading a repeatable solution for a subscription.

How to find first users during the 7-week consulting gap

One operator in an HN thread on consulting reports that the cycle between gigs can stretch to 7 weeks, a period of high friction that often discourages founders from pursuing the "first user" via service-led growth. This gap is not a failure of the model, but a reflection of the reality of high-ticket B2B sales.

"I hear about trouble getting paid, Net60 and longer durations between checks, long periods between gigs (7 weeks was what one friend just reported)." — u/turk73, HN thread on consulting clients

Founders often mistake this downtime for a lack of market demand. In reality, the "7-week gap" is often the time required to build the trust necessary to land a contract. If you are struggling to find your first user, the answer is rarely "more ads." It is almost always a deeper, more specific engagement with a smaller set of potential buyers. When you are exposed to a wider set of business problems, you are more likely to see recurring challenges—the kind that people will pay to fix. This is the primary advantage of the consultancy-first approach: you are essentially being paid to perform market research.

Why finding first users requires being picky

One founder in an HN article on remote work notes that landing the right role—or the right customer—requires being "picky." When you are looking for your first SaaS users, broad-spectrum outreach often yields lower-quality leads than direct, targeted conversations.

"When I started looking for remote jobs online, it took me over six months to finally land the right job." — u/pgeorgep, HN thread on finding remote work

The logic holds for SaaS: the time spent finding the "perfect" first user is an investment, not a cost. If you can secure a client willing to pay for a custom solution, you have effectively validated the unit economics of your business before you have even written the code for the subscription version. Compare this to the alternative: spending months blindly pitching a product that has no proven market. The opportunity cost of pursuing the wrong "first user" is significant. In SaaS, landing a high-value first user who provides actionable feedback is worth more than a dozen low-value users who churn after a month. Founders should treat their first user as a design partner, not a metric to be gamed.

Audit your outreach in two hours

If you are currently struggling to find your first users, stop focusing on "growth" and start focusing on "depth." Use this audit to shift your strategy from broad outreach to targeted problem-solving.

1. Identify the specific pain: Search for the specific frustration your product solves in niche forums or G2 reviews. If you cannot find a thread where someone is complaining about the current solution, your problem is not "first user" acquisition—it is market fit.
2. The "Freelance" Pivot: Instead of pitching a low-cost SaaS subscription, pitch a custom engagement to solve that specific pain. Use the time spent on this engagement as your "user research."
3. The Validation Threshold: If you cannot find a single person willing to pay for the custom solution, you have saved yourself months of building a product nobody wants. If they do pay, you have your first user and the exact requirements for your MVP.
4. List Hygiene: Stop using automated platforms to blast lists. Build a manual list of 50 people who have expressed the specific pain you identified in step 1. Reach out to them with a reference to their specific post or review.

Where to find first users and data patterns

This analysis draws on four HN threads (the ones cited inline above). Threads were surfaced via Discury's cross-subreddit monitoring, which focuses on identifying patterns in founder behaviour rather than generic marketing advice.

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