How to Get The First 50 Paying Users For My SaaS?
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Most founders think the hard part is building a product. In reality, it’s convincing real people to trust you with their money when no one else has. How do you get strangers to pay without testimonials or social proof doing the heavy lifting for you?
The moment you have to find your first 50 customers is the moment the idea of “build it and they will come” falls apart. Your Stripe dashboard stays quiet. A few visitors land on your site, click around, hesitate, and then vanish. You start questioning the idea of your product, the pricing, and even the positioning.
Here’s what most founders learn too late: the first 50 rarely come from polished launches or growth hacks. Most first customers come from being really specific about who you help and why it is important right now. Early traction is proximity; Get close to the problem, speak your users’ language, and reaching the right people feels much easier.
What Are the Steps to Get 50 Paying Customers for a New SaaS?
Getting your first paying users means showing up where your ideal customers are frustrated, having real conversations with them, and taking deliberate steps that turn interest into paying users.
1. Define Your ICP Before You Touch a Marketing Channel
Your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) is the filter for every early growth decision. It’s also the foundation of any effective marketing strategy for SaaS. Don’t just say “small businesses” or “freelancers.” Go into specifics:
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What role do they hold?
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What tools are they already using?
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What frustrations keep them up at night?
Talk to a few potential users, read forums, and watch social discussions. Then, capture the language they use to describe their problems. The goal here is to understand their decision-making triggers. When you know exactly who you’re serving, every outreach message, landing page, and comment in a niche community becomes more precise.
2. Fix Your Positioning Before You Chase Traffic
Early users don’t care how advanced your features are. What they really care about is whether your product solves their problem. Strong positioning is the foundation of any successful marketing SaaS strategy, especially when you’re trying to win over your first paying users. Start by rewriting your value proposition in the words your ICP uses. Ask yourself:
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What immediate benefit do they get from signing up?
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Why should they choose your product today instead of “thinking about it later”?
A small change in copy can double conversion. Things like landing pages, email outreach, and social posts should all echo the same message. Test headlines, explain outcomes before features, and try to highlight that “aha moment” in the first 10 seconds. If people land confused, no amount of traffic will rescue you.
3. Start With Direct, High-Intent Outreach
Before you spend hours on big launches, new content or paid ads, find a handful of people who are actively struggling with the problem your product solves. Reach out by sending thoughtful LinkedIn or X messages. Comment in forums where your ICP is venting frustrations. And offer early access or demos with no strings attached. Here, quality over quantity is the most important thing to keep in mind.
These first conversations teach you what language works, what objections arise, and what features are truly important. Founders often skip this step, trying to promote their product before validating that anyone wants it. Doing this manually may feel tedious, but each conversation is a mini market-research session and a high-intent lead rolled into one.
4. Use a Cross-Channel Mix
Early traction rarely comes from a single platform. The trick is to identify where your ICP already hunts for solutions, and double down there. Try a small mix of channels:
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Reddit threads or niche forums
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LinkedIn posts and group conversations
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X comments in industry discussions
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Slack communities or Discord servers
Track which channels generate actual responses, and engage there consistently. Once you find a channel that resonates, go deeper. Post once a week with thoughtful value rather than daily spam.
5. Turn Conversations Into Conversion Loops
Your first users are your feedback engine. Every conversation, demo, and DM is data. Use it to rewrite all your onboarding flows. Each improvement makes the next conversation smoother and increases conversion.
Repeat this loop: engage, learn, refine, convert. Early users become testimonials and proof that make scaling much easier. In practice, this is how momentum happens: the first 10 paying users fuel the next 20, and relevance and iteration boost growth toward 50 and beyond.
6. Make It Really Easy to Say Yes
Early customers are asking themselves one thing: “What’s the risk here?” If trying your product feels confusing or like it might create extra work, they’ll delay the decision. And in early-stage SaaS, delayed usually means lost. So audit your buying and onboarding flow like a skeptical stranger:
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How many steps before someone experiences value?
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Do they need a demo before understanding the benefit?
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Is pricing transparent and easy to grasp?
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Can they cancel easily if it’s not a fit?
Reduce the risk for early users with something like a free trial, guided onboarding, early adopter pricing, or hands-on setup help. The goal here is to really reduce uncertainty.
Where and When to Get Help With Your First SaaS Customers?
Getting your first 50 users is tough. It can feel slow and frustrating. But you don’t have to figure everything out on your own. Knowing when to bring in the right SaaS help can save you months of guessing.
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Mentors and advisors: Reach out to founders who’ve launched SaaS products before. Their experience can help you avoid mistakes in things like positioning, outreach, or pricing.
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Communities and forums: Spaces like Indie Hackers, SaaS-focused Slack groups, and niche subreddits are full of builders sharing what’s working (and what’s not). You’ll often get honest feedback faster than you expect.
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Development companies and SaaS content marketing agencies: If you struggle with things like landing pages, copy, or outreach, bringing in someone with a track record, like Magora, can greatly improve traction without going over your budget.
The key here is timing: ask for help before you hit repeated dead ends!
Thinking Beyond the First 50 Users
Getting your first paying users forces you to confront assumptions, question your product-market fit, and learn what truly motivates someone to spend money on a new idea.
The real challenge is simply paying close attention to what people are actually saying, and being willing to adjust and try again. Getting those first users shows you lessons no guide can really teach: understanding your users and hitting the right moment often beat clever tricks and big launches.
Turning your first users into loyal customers doesn’t have to be a solo struggle. Partner with experts like Magora, and get guidance on product positioning, competitor research, and launch strategy.
Director of Operations and Business Development
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