me and a friend are building a saas
we’re bootstrapped, so right now we’re trying to be smart with marketing instead of just throwing money blindly.
before we start spending, i want to understand what actually works right now:
what are the best free ways to get first 100–500 users? (that actually convert, not just traffic)
what channels worked for you recently? (reddit, twitter, cold dm, content, etc)
what should we avoid wasting time on early?
at what point did you decide to start spending money, and on what? (ads, influencers, tools, etc)
if you had to restart from 0, what would you do first for fastest traction?
we’re trying to keep it lean but also not miss obvious opportunities.
would appreciate real experiences over theory.