TL;DR: This is a collection of practical marketing resources to get the first 10 / 100 / 1000 users for your SaaS / App / Startup.


Let’s face it. Marketing is tough, especially if you’re a technical founder moving the first steps with your startup.

While there’s a ton of advice out there, most of the time it's about scaling some VC-funded startup with a big marketing budget to $1,000,000 ARR and 100,000 users.

Inspirational? Sure. Actionable? Not really.

This is why you’ll find here a practical collection of startup resources, tips, and some tools to help you:

• 🎯 find the first users for your startup
• 📣 promote your SaaS without a budget
• 🚀 build your Go-To-Market strategy
  
  
  

Ready to get started? Just pick a topic:

• 📣 Places To Launch Your Startup
• 😾 Marketing for Product Hunt Launch NEW!
• 📷 Social Media Marketing
• ❄ Sales & Cold Outreach
• 📈 SEO
• 🤖 LLM SEO, AEO, GEO
• 🦊 Marketing on Reddit
• 💌 Email Marketing
• 🧲 Content Marketing
• 💸 Ads
• 👩‍🏫 Influencer Marketing
• 💑 Affiliates and Referrals
• 🛠 Free-Tool Marketing
• 🎯 Landing Pages, Messaging and Positioning
• 🎰 Pricing
• 🔥 Conversion Rate Optimization
• 💡 Idea Validation
• ⚗ User Research
• 🧨 Other resources

PS. Leave me a star ⭐ if you find this useful!

Launch platforms, software directories, and communities are an easy way to get the first users for your startup and a tiny, steady flow of people to your SaaS. Some of the following may not be relevant for your product, but (hopefully) can give you ideas on what to look for.

Launch platforms:

• Betalist
• Fazier
• Uneed
• Microlaunch
• Peerlist
• Indie Hackers
• Hacker News
• ProductHunt
• SideProjectors
• LaunchIgniter
• PeerPush

Software directories:

• Toolfolio
• toools.design
• OpenAlternative
• LibHunt
• SaaSHub
• SaaS Genius
• G2
• TrustPilot
• Capterra
• There's an AI for that
• Alternativeto
• SourceForge
• Softonic
• TrustMRR

Lifetime deals platforms & groups:

• AppSumo
• RocketHub
• StackSocial
• SaaS Mantra
• Saas Warrior
• LTD Hunt
• KEN Moo
• Lifetimo
• Prime Club
• SaasZilla
• SaaSPirate
• ProductCanyon
• Dealmirror
• Dealify

Subreddits (always check the rules before posting anything):

• Sideproject
• Selfhosted - use flair "Product Announcement"
• Webdev - use flair "Showoff Saturday"
• Startup_Ideas
• Indiehackers - use flair "Self Promotion"
• Internetisbeautiful
• Roastmystartup
• Alphaandbetausers
• Iosapps - use flair "Dev - Self Promotion"
• Saasbuild
• BuyFromEU - use flair "European Product"
• Buildinpublic
• Scaleinpublic
• ShowMeYourSaaS
• DevelopersIndia - use flair "I made this"
• Androidapps - use flair "Self Promotion"
• iOSProgramming - use flair "App Saturday"
• MVPLaunch
• Macapps
• TheFounders - use flair "Show"
• Apps - use flair "App"
• Chrome_extensions - use flair "Self Promotion"
• LaunchMyStartup
• ProductHunters
• Startups_promotion
• TestMyApp
• ProductivityApps
• ShowYourApp

PS. You can find more websites to launch your startup here (thanks Sandra) and, if you're running an AI startup, here.
PPS. You can find a few tips for writing a great launch post here.

Product Hunt is still one of the most effective ways to get early users (if you can pull off a successful launch). Yes, it takes a lot of preparation, promotion and follow-up work but hitting #1 on Product Hunt can get you a ton of honest feedback, downloads, users and PR buzz.

Use these guides to plan your launch strategy:

• How to rank #1 on Product Hunt
• How to successfully launch on Product Hunt
• Product Hunt launch step-by-step guide + templates
• Product Hunt Launch Workbook

Managing multiple accounts across all social media platforms can be pretty intense (there’s a reason why it’s a full-time job); however, there are a couple of strategies worth trying: building in public and social listening.

Building in Public - it’s the easiest social media marketing tactic. In a nutshell, it’s about using your personal profile to share expertise, product updates, and behind-the-scenes content:

• How to Build in Public as a Founder
• The Ultimate Founder-Led LinkedIn Guide
• LinkedIn CEO/Founder playbook
• 199 LinkedIn post examples
• 6 hacks to get the most out of LinkedIn
• The Ultimate Founder & Team LinkedIn Playbook
• Turn Building in Public into your most profitable GTM channel
• How to market to developers on Twitter
• SuperX Twitter Analytics extension - to find top performing tweets from other accounts
• Find your Following and How to Dominate Twitter/X by Dagobert Renouf - 2 courses by OG Build in Public creators

Social listening - tracking and joining online conversations on topics related to your Startup is pretty helpful to get in touch with users and learn more about them:

• Social Listening: Identifying High-Intent Mentions to Grow Your SaaS
• Sample set-up from Simple Analytics
• F5 bot - a free tool to track mentions on Hacker News and Reddit
• BOFU Keyword Ideas - to brainstorm keywords to track

Other Social Media Marketing Guides:

• Organic Growth Guide for TikTok and Instagram
• Pinterest Growth Guide
• How to Market a Viral App through organic UGC

Most people hate cold outreach and everything connected with direct sales. Yes, depending on your approach, it might be hard to scale and time-intensive, but cold emails and DMs are the most straightforward way to get in touch with potential users, collect precious early-stage feedback and find the first customers for your startup.

So, how can you find people on target? What should you write in your messages? And how can you scale cold outreach? Here are a few ideas to set up your SaaS sales strategy:

• The Ultimate Framework to build your Ideal Customer Profile
• Before there is Ideal, there is Early (Customer Profile)
• Ideal Customer Profile tips from Posthog
• How to analyze your early customers to validate your ICP
• B2B Ideal Customer Profile Template
• How to do startup sales with no experience
• Master LinkedIn Sales Navigator in < 90 min
• 8 Steps to Get Your Outbound Up & Running (Without Overthinking It)
• The GTM Outreach Playbook: From Triggers to Demos
• The Ultimate Guide to Sales Product Demos
• 4 Must-Have Email Templates in SaaS Sales
• The Cold Outbound Handbook
• 8 must-have founder-led (signal-based) outbound campaigns
• The ultimate guide to setting up a cold email growth system
• The Best Outbound Tech Stack for Early-Stage Startups
• The cold email that started ConvertKit
• Tally's early-stage DM strategy - you can find the full story here
• Sales emails examples from top companies
• Got saas clients doing this strategy
• How Our Client Booked 25+ Meetings & 10+ New Logos Using Clay + YC
• Examples of proven sales plays to create a sales pipeline
• How to create a high-converting Sales Deck
• How to sell to developers (tldr: you don’t, sell to their boss)
• The enterprise sales playbook - Lenny's Podcast

Should you focus on SEO in the early days of your startup? Probably not, SEO takes time (and backlinks), but this doesn’t mean you should neglect it either.

SEO is the foundation for many startups, and it can get you a steady source of traffic without having to spend anything other than the time to do it.

These guides and tips will help you get started:

• The Ultimate SEO Guide for Early-Stage SaaS
• How to Prioritize SEO in Early-Stage Startups and MVP Development
• SEO strategy from Simple Analytics
• Non-obvious SEO advice for startups
• Use-case-led SEO: A strategy for sustainable organic growth
• The Future of SEO is User-Generated Content
• The HyperGrowth Partners Guide to AI-powered Programmatic SEO
• Danny Postma's SEO Blueprint - the SEO course for makers
• How to do keyword research for SEO and AEO

PS. If you're new to SEO and don't know where/how to start check out LearningSEO and The Complete Guide to Programmatic SEO.
PPS. If you're building iOS apps also check these two ASO guides: Create an App Store listing that ranks and Rank higher on App Store

How to get recommended by ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, and Gemini is probably the most popular question from founders in 2025. And it’s easy to understand why, you can get mentioned by a citation tomorrow and start showing up immediately, even if you’re an early-stage startup.

So, where can you learn how to get found in AI search?

• The ultimate guide to AEO: How to get ChatGPT to recommend your product
• AEO: How to Make AI Recommend Your Product
• How to get recommended by ChatGPT
• A hands-on guide to ranking across AI search engines like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google
• How Vercel is adapting SEO for LLMs and AI search
• How Tally Turned AI into Their Top Acquisition Source
• What Companies Are Doing TODAY to Rank High on AI Engines
• A playbook for making AI discovery the best new channel for high-intent leads
• AI & LLM SEO Course: Get ChatGPT, Claude & Perplexity to Recommend You
• Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) Course from Ahrefs
• A startup's guide to answer engine optimization - Posthog
• How to Get AI to Recommend Your Business

Everyone says Reddit is the go-to platform to get initial traction and the first users for your product. There’s a community for almost every topic, plus more and more people (and LLMs) are using it to bypass SEO garbage and find what real humans actually think.

But Redditors have an almost supernatural ability to detect marketing, and when founders try to sneak in promotional content, it gets downvoted into oblivion (if you’re lucky).

So, how to promote an App/SaaS/Startup on Reddit without getting banned?

• The Reddit marketing guide for beginners
• How to promote your MVP on Reddit
• Reddit post examples to launch/promote a product
• The key to self-promotion on Reddit
• How OpenPhone used Reddit to get our first 1,000 customers
• Tips on marketing on Reddit from Lemlist
• The storytelling hack for 10x buzz on Reddit
• The key to self-promotion on Reddit
• How Rewardful is nailing the Reddit Marketing game
• How to start and grow a subreddit for B2B SaaS
• Reddit SEO strategy for B2B brands

PS. If you're looking for a list of subreddits that allow self-promotion go back to Places To Launch Your Startup, and if you're looking to set up your Reddit social listening strategy go back to Social Media Marketing.

Email marketing can help you with almost anything: onboarding new users, boosting free-to-paid conversions, promoting affiliate/referral programs, and collecting feedback. Plus, it’s often your only option to engage users outside of your product.

• The SaaS Email Marketing Playbook
• Email Marketing for SaaS 101: Engage, Retain, and Scale
• SaaS Email Marketing Strategy: Everything You Need to Know
• Lifecycle email planning worksheets from Userlist
• How to Build High-Converting SaaS Email Onboarding Sequences
• Onboarding Email concepts
• SaaS Email Examples on Userlist's blog
• Email examples on Encharge's blog
• Behavior-based Email Marketing for B2B SaaS
• 15 SaaS Email Flows Ideas
• How to optimize an email automation
• How we built our onboarding email flow - PostHog

Just like SEO, content marketing is one of the first growth levers to pull for a startup. This time, instead of creating content to praise search engines, you’ll be sharing it where your audience hangs out and hijacking trends for free exposure:

• Getting PR for your SaaS
• A how-to guide for writing original content that works
• The Ultimate Content Marketing Programs Guide for SaaS
• How to effectively create content for developers
• A behind the scenes look at MKT1's content strategy part 1 and part 2
• How I promote my content - Marketing Examples
• Content distribution checklist (thanks to Ross Simmonds)
• How to create powerful SaaS Lead Magnets + examples

Every startup will think about adding a paid channel to their marketing strategy sooner or later and Ads are one of the best ways to accelerate user acquisition.

Here are a few guides to help you avoid burning through your budget before getting any return from your Ad campaign:

• How to get started with Google Ads for early-stage B2B SaaS startups
• The No-Fluff LinkedIn Ads Playbook
• How to get started with LinkedIn Ads for early-stage B2B SaaS startups
• The guide to advertise your SaaS & Software on Facebook
• Free B2B Ads courses from AdConversion
• How to SPY on your competitor’s successful ads
• 250+ DevTool Ads examples
• Burning money on paid ads for a dev tool – what we've learned
• How to run effective Reddit ads: Meme-Style, Incentive-First Copy, and "Is This an Ad?" Text Posts

Going where the audience is is the first rule of marketing. That’s why partnering with content creators and influencers can help you grow your startup and connect directly with customers.

However, online advice on influencer marketing is often bad and outdated, so let’s take a look at a few firsthand experiences:

• Should Influencers be part of your GTM Strategy?
• Short Form Playbook from Jenny AI (also watch this video)
• How Clerk Partners with YouTube’s Dev Community
• 5 Pillars of Successful Influencer Marketing Campaigns
• The B2B Influencer Marketing Playbook used by Lovable, Gamma & n8n

Word-of-mouth is often the main growth driver for bootstrapped startups. Why? Because affiliate and referral programs are easy to set up, cheap (you only pay if the user converts), and build trust and credibility (when users recommend your product, you’re not only getting traffic, but also social proof that it works).

• 10 steps for a great Referral Program
• Your guide to B2B referrals
• Your ultimate guide to affiliate referrals for B2B SaaS
• 8 Affiliate & Referral Email Examples
• The Modern Affiliate Program Playbook by Rewardful

Free mini tools are your best bet on going viral, generating PR coverage and backlinks, and driving a ton of organic traffic. Plus, it doesn’t feel like marketing (that’s the reason why it’s also called Engineering as Marketing).

• Mini tools are 10x more powerful than free trials
• Side Project Marketing: What Is It & How to Do It
• Engineering as Marketing (with examples from Hubspot, Shopify & Ahrefs)
• Building Free Tools for Marketing (SEO)

Most startup websites are ineffective. They fail to tell who the product is for, what the product does, and why it is better. This means confused visitors, poor conversion rates, and wasted marketing $$$.

Here are a few resources to turn your website into a sales and marketing asset:

• How to create a more effective homepage
• The only SaaS homepage framework you need
• How to create a high-converting SaaS homepage
• ConversionFactory's SaaS homepage framework
• SaaS Headline Playbook
• 70+ SaaS homepage copywriting templates & examples
• A quickstart guide to positioning
• The definitive product positioning framework and How to differentiate your product
• The Ultimate Positioning Guide (+ Worksheet)
• How to create value proposition for developer tools
• Developer product positioning and messaging examples that slap
• The Ultimate SaaS Messaging Framework for early-stage Startups
• Use Social Proof To Elevate Your GTM Efforts
• The Ultimate Guide on Case Studies & Testimonials
• The DNA of a Great Pricing Page
• How to optimize your pricing page
• How to create an effective pricing page
• The perfect Product Pages for SaaS founders
• The Ultimate Guide to the perfect SaaS pricing page (incl. real examples)

“Your product delivers the value added to target customers; with pricing, we capture added value back to build a sustainable business.”

Confused? You’re not alone. Pricing and business model are the toughest things to crack for a startup.

Here are a few frameworks to get your price right:

• Pricing: From WTF to WTP (Willingness to Pay)
• The Ultimate B2B SaaS Pricing Guide for early-stage startups
• Your guide to price testing
• Are you leaving too much money on the table?
• How to have "the pricing talk" with your customers
• Your guide to reverse trials
• 8 fundamentals about free trials for early stage PLG startups
• 14 tactical ideas for selling annual plans

Little tweaks can have a huge impact on conversions. Here are a few ideas ready for you to A/B test:

• Are you making this website mistake?
• Surprising lessons from 20,000 experiments
• The most powerful CTA? Hint: It's definitely not "Book a Demo"
• 23% more trial signups after paywall redesign
• One blurry background = 94% more conversions

One of the most common and painful mistakes you can make is having an idea and immediately spending all your time building a product without validating demand first.

Some ideas are great, but most aren’t worth your time. So, how can you validate a startup idea?

• The 2/20/200 Idea Validation Framework
• The 7-Day Business Idea Validation Framework
• How to validate your idea before building your product, wasting money and time
• A four-part guide to finding problems your customers will pay you to solve using Reddit
• How to not do product discovery
• The cold email that started a $100M/yr company
• Interview Script: Discovery Phase (before you've built anything)

Talk to your customers! They’ll let you know what to build, what to improve, and what to leave alone!

Sure, but when you’re running a SaaS/App, customers sign up by themselves, learn how to use your product on their own, and only reach out if they need help or support.

So, how do you get feedback? Here are a few resources to get you started:

• An engineer’s guide to talking to users
• How to get insights on autopilot
• No time for Research? 3 High-speed Research Methods for Growth
• How to write great product survey questions (with examples)
• How Superhuman Built an Engine to Find Product Market Fit
• MaxDiff: the secret to getting the truth from customers about what they actually care about
• Journey mapping interviews: a structured approach to analyzing the onboarding experience
• A short introduction to Jobs To Be Done
• 22 questions you should be asking your customers
• Jobs To Be Done: Email Invite Template & Interview Questions by Forget The Funnel
• Maze Question Bank: over 350 ready-to-go questions for your research projects
• Customer interview scripts (thanks to Michele Hansen)
  • New Customer Script - to uncover the initial part of the customer's journey
  • Happy Customer Script - to learn from the customers you want more of
  • Churned Customer Script - if you're struggling with churn
  • Feature Request Script - when you want to dive deep into a feature request

• 100+ Growth Hacks for SaaS
• GitHub Search Engine Optimization (SEO): how to rank your repository in GitHub search
• The Ultimate Playbook for Getting More GitHub Stars
• How today’s biggest consumer products got their first 1,000 users
• B2B startup marketing for noobs, by noobs
• Developer marketing guide (by a dev tool startup CMO)
• How we got our first 1,000 users by PostHog
• Your guide to quick wins in SaaS marketing
• The Product-Market Fit Game
• 40 things we’ve learned about marketing for developers
• How to create a good GitHub Readme
• Marketing Skills for Claude Code

This was inspired by Marketing for Engineers (thanks Lisa & Ahmed!) and is created and maintained by Edoardo Stradella (Twitter/X).
All resources, guides, and tools were done by independent authors and companies. All credentials are included.