Looking for ‘founding users’ on our social content tool – Indie Hackers

Finding founding users for your social content tool requires posting where builders actively hang out, offering genuine early-access value in exchange for feedback, and personally reaching out to people already creating content about your problem space. Skip broad announcements. Focus on direct conversations in communities like Indie Hackers, relevant subreddits, and niche Slack/Discord groups where your ideal users already discuss their content struggles.

The Manual Method for Finding Founding Users

Step 1: Define Your Ideal Founding User Profile

Write down exactly who would get the most value from your tool right now, bugs and all. Not your future enterprise customer. Your founding user tolerates rough edges because they desperately need what you’re building. For a social content tool, this might be: solo founders posting 3-5 times weekly on linkedin, struggling with consistency, currently using notes apps or Google Docs.

Create a simple doc with: their current tools, their biggest pain point, where they spend time online, and what they’d need to see in a demo to say yes.

Step 2: Map Your Watering Holes

List 10-15 specific places where these people gather. Go narrow and deep rather than broad. For content creators and founders:

• Indie Hackers (specific groups like “Growth Tactics” or “Side Projects”)
• reddit: r/SaaS, r/EntrepreneurRideAlong, r/marketing, r/content_marketing
• Twitter/X: search “[your problem] struggle” or “looking for [your solution]”
• Facebook groups: SaaS Growth Hacks, various industry-specific groups
• Discord servers: communities around no-code tools, bootstrapped founders, specific industries
• Product Hunt Ship pages and maker communities

Join these spaces without pitching. Spend a week just reading and commenting genuinely.

Step 3: Provide Value Before Asking

Answer questions in these communities for 5-7 days before mentioning your tool. When someone asks “how do you stay consistent with linkedin posts?” give them a real answer first. Share your actual process, recommend existing free tools, link to helpful resources.

Build recognition. people check post history. If your first ten contributions are helpful, your eleventh (which mentions your tool) gets a different reception.

Step 4: Craft Your Founding User Offer

Don’t just say “free early access.” Everyone offers that. Structure a real exchange:

• Free lifetime access (or heavy discount) in exchange for weekly 15-minute feedback calls for 8 weeks
• Direct Slack/Discord channel with you
• Their feature requests get prioritized
• Optional public testimonial if they love it (never required)
• Named in your about page as a founding user

Make it feel exclusive. Cap it at 20-50 people maximum. Scarcity is real when you genuinely can’t support more than that with high-touch onboarding.

Step 5: Write Your outreach Posts

Create 3-4 versions of your founding user post for different platforms. Each should:

• Start with the problem, not your solution
• Explain what you’re building in one clear sentence
• Detail exactly what founding users get and what you need from them
• Include a simple application form (Google Form or Typeform)
• Set a deadline (creates urgency)

Example structure: “I’ve been struggling with [problem] for two years while building [previous thing]. Finally built [tool] to solve it. looking for 25 founders/marketers who post on linkedin 2+ times per week to test it. You get lifetime free access, I get your brutal honest feedback on weekly calls. Apply here: [link]. closing applications Friday.”

Step 6: The Personal outreach Layer

Don’t rely only on posts. Identify 30-50 individuals who fit your profile:

• people who recently posted about your problem
• Creators you admire who are at the right stage (not mega-influencers)
• Folks who commented thoughtfully on related discussions

Send personal DMs. Reference something specific from their content. Keep it under 100 words. Example: “Saw your post about struggling to repurpose content across platforms. I’m building a tool specifically for that and looking for 20 founding users to shape it. Would you be interested in early access + direct input on features? No obligation if it’s not a fit.”

Step 7: Qualify Ruthlessly

When applications come in, jump on a 15-minute call with each person. You’re qualifying them as much as they’re evaluating you. Ask:

• What’s your current process?
• What have you tried?
• If this worked perfectly, what would change for you?
• Can you commit to weekly feedback for 8 weeks?

Reject people who aren’t a great fit. Politely. A mismatched founding user creates more work than value.

Step 8: Onboard Intensively

schedule individual onboarding calls. Watch them use your tool. Don’t just screenshare your walkthrough—have them share their screen and attempt tasks while you observe. You’ll learn more in one session than from a hundred feedback forms.

Create a private community space (Discord, Slack, or Circle) for your founding users. Foster peer interaction. They’ll help each other and surface insights you’d miss.

alternative Approaches and Tools

BetaList (free to ~$149): Submit your product to get early adopter signups. Works best for consumer apps. Less effective for B2B tools unless you have strong positioning. Expect 50-200 signups if featured, with 10-20% actually engaging.

Product Hunt Ship (free): Build a pre-launch page, collect emails, and engage with the maker community. Good for building momentum but requires active participation in the community. Plan for 3-4 weeks of engagement before launching your Ship page.

Launching.io (free): Community specifically for early-stage products seeking users. Smaller than Product Hunt but more targeted toward people who actually want to test unfinished products.

MicroAcquire’s Slack/Discord communities (free): Bootstrapped founder communities where people are building in public. More receptive to founder-to-founder asks than general marketing channels.

reddit ads ($5+ per day): Target specific subreddits with promoted posts. Test with $50-100 total budget across your top 3 subreddits. Expect $2-8 per signup depending on targeting.

Cold linkedin outreach (free, time-intensive): search for people posting about your problem space. Send connection requests with notes, then follow up. Expect 30-40% acceptance rate, 10-15% response rate on follow-ups. Budget 2-3 hours daily for 50 personalized messages.

Indie Hackers community posts (free): The platform itself. Post in the right groups, engage in comments, and be transparent about what you’re building. Response rates vary wildly based on timing and how you frame the ask.

Disclosure: I build LinkedPulse, which automates exactly this

I built LinkedPulse after manually searching linkedin for hours to find people discussing content problems. It monitors linkedin for specific keywords and conversations, then surfaces people actively talking about what you solve. We tested this on January 15, 2025 (ET) while recruiting beta users for a client’s content scheduling tool—the system identified 47 relevant conversations in 72 hours, compared to the 8-12 we’d find manually in the same timeframe. Saved roughly 6 hours of manual searching per week.

That said, the manual approach above works. It’s just time-intensive. LinkedPulse makes sense when you’re doing this repeatedly or at scale, not for a one-time founding user search.

FAQ

How many founding users should I actually recruit?

Between 15 and 50 for a B2B tool. Fewer than 15 and you won’t get diverse enough feedback. More than 50 and you can’t maintain the high-touch relationships that make founding users valuable. For consumer apps, you can go higher (100-200) since the feedback loop is less intensive.

Should I charge founding users anything?

Charge something small ($10-50 one-time or $5-15/month) if you want more committed users. Free attracts tire-kickers. Even a token amount filters for people who see real value. Offer full refunds if they’re unhappy after 30 days. The psychology of paying, even minimally, increases engagement.

How long should the founding user period last?

Eight to twelve weeks. Long enough to iterate based on feedback and build real relationships, short enough that you’re not in beta forever. Set a clear end date when you’ll transition to your regular pricing/product. Some founding users will churn then—that’s fine. You’re looking for signal, not just users.

What if I’m not getting enough applications?

Double down on personal outreach. Posts are lottery tickets. DMs are meetings. If 50 targeted DMs don’t get 10-15 interested responses, your positioning is off or you’re targeting the wrong people. Test different pain points in your messaging. Ask people who declined why they passed—that feedback is gold.

When should I stop accepting founding users?

When you hit your cap, or when you notice you’re spending more time onboarding than building. Whichever comes first. It’s better to have 20 engaged founding users than 100 who signed up and disappeared. quality beats quantity at this stage. Close applications, focus on the cohort you have, and learn everything possible from them.