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1Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitches2Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errors3Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minuteThere is no launch site or promotion trick that reliably delivers an indie product’s first 100 users. A more dependable approach is to find a specific group with the problem you solve, learn from potential users directly, and test ways to reach more of them. Treat each channel as an experiment: look for people who try the product, get value from it, and return—not just a spike in signups.
Start with a reachable audience, not a launch platform
“Developers” or “people who want to be more productive” is usually too broad to guide outreach. Define the first audience by the problem they share and where you can reach them. A channel is worth considering only if the people you want to serve are active there and the product is at a stage that suits the attention it could bring.
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For each candidate group or channel, ask:
- Audience overlap: Are the people with this problem active there?
- Stage fit: Do you need private feedback, initial awareness, or ongoing discovery?
- Desired outcome: Are you seeking conversations, trials, activation, sales, or repeat use?
- Effort: Can you participate consistently and respond to people?
- Signal: Can you tell whether visitors become useful, returning users?
IndieTools’ guide to choosing where to launch a SaaS recommends matching the platform to the product’s audience, stage, and goal rather than submitting everywhere. It offers selection guidance, not a measured ranking of channels: IndieTools’ launch-channel guide.
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How do I get my first 100 users as an indie developer?
Use a sequence of small, learnable steps. A launch can help concentrate attention, but direct outreach and ongoing discovery give you more opportunities to understand who the product serves and why they return.
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1. Invite early users personally
Find people who plausibly experience the problem and invite them to try the product. Ask what they expected, where they got stuck, and what would make the product worth returning to. IndieAppCircle’s September 2026 founder guide recommends recruiting the first ten users by hand. Treat ten as that guide’s practical recommendation—not a proven threshold or a guarantee of product-market fit.
2. Participate in relevant communities before promoting
Spend time listening to the spaces where your intended users already gather. Answer questions, share useful work, and ask for feedback in a way that gives people something specific to react to. Check each community’s own rules before posting. Product Hunt advises makers to participate before launching and cautions against appearing in Reddit or Indie Hackers communities solely to ask for promotion. Its official launch-sharing guidance puts it plainly: “Don’t ask for upvotes. Ask for feedback, comments, opinions, help spreading the word, not for upvotes.”
3. Make the next step obvious
A visitor should quickly understand who the product helps, what it does, and what to do next. If a general homepage is cluttered, Product Hunt recommends considering a focused landing page with one main call to action, such as trying or downloading the product. A short demo or screenshots can help explain the product, but there is no universal asset checklist or established performance lift in the available guidance.
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4. Choose a launch channel for fit
A launch board may create a concentrated moment of attention; a niche community may put you closer to people who share the problem; a technical audience may be better placed to assess a technical product. These are ways to reason about fit, not evidence that one channel converts better than another. Use the audience, stage, and goal criteria above rather than treating a popular platform as a default answer.
5. Pair a launch moment with continuing discovery
If you launch, use the attention to invite real feedback and offer a useful next step. Continue with repeatable activities—such as thoughtful community participation or relevant content—rather than assuming launch-day traffic will last. IndieAppCircle recommends pairing a launch spike with slower discovery channels; that is founder guidance, not a controlled comparison showing that one approach will outperform another.
6. Follow up and improve the product
Respond to questions, address friction, and let early users know when their feedback leads to a change. Keep the ask proportionate: a conversation may be more useful than a broad request to share or promote the product. Learning from a small number of engaged users can help you refine both the product and the audience you pursue next.
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Where should I launch my SaaS?
Choose the place where your intended users are likely to notice and assess the product, given what you need to learn now. For a product still being refined, direct conversations or a community that permits feedback may be more useful than a large public launch. For a product ready for broad awareness, a launch platform may make sense if its audience overlaps with yours. The available sources do not establish a universal conversion, retention, cost, or effort ranking for launch channels, so compare candidates against your own objective rather than relying on a generic “best platform” list.
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How to tell whether visibility is turning into progress
Choose a measure that matches the question you are trying to answer. Raw signup totals show that people took an initial step; they do not establish that the product solved a problem or earned a return visit.
- Validating the problem: Track qualified conversations and what users say they expected the product to do.
- Improving onboarding: Watch whether new users reach the product’s useful first outcome.
- Assessing continued value: Look for users who return and use the product again.
IndieAppCircle recommends watching for returning users, but its guidance does not supply a universal definition of activation or a benchmark. Set a practical measure based on your product’s intended use, then use the results to decide what to change or test next.
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