https://contentforsaas.hashnode.dev/bootstrap-saas-customer-acquisition-zero-to-users-guide
Discover the exact framework indie hackers use to acquire their first 1000 SaaS customers without burning cash on ads. Real case studies included.
Building a SaaS product as a solo founder can feel like working in complete isolation. You ship features, optimize performance, write documentation — and yet, the user count remains zero.
Sound familiar?
I’ve been documenting this journey for indie hackers and bootstrapped founders. After studying dozens of successful SaaS launches, one clear pattern emerges: products that scale aren’t competing on features anymore. They’re competing on networks.
Recently, a SaaS founder reached out after eight months of building a project management tool. It had a beautiful React frontend, a solid Node.js backend, and thorough API documentation. Launch day brought 47 signups, but only 3 active users.
Meanwhile, his own team kept using Slack for project coordination. Why? Because that’s where their conversations, context, and workflows lived. Despite building a “superior” product, his app sat empty while “inferior” tools thrived.
This is the cold start problem Andrew Chen discusses in his book analyzing Uber’s explosive growth. Products don’t succeed because they’re better—they succeed because they create network effects.
Many SaaS builders obsess over clean code, optimized queries, and elegant architectures. But users don’t care about your tech stack. They care about how connected the network of users is.
Think about your daily tools:
The network of connections, data, and habits makes leaving painful. Andrew Chen calls this the Allee threshold—borrowed from ecology, where animals survive better in groups.
Chen highlights a predictable pattern for how networked products grow from zero to billions: