OpenAI Closes Massive $110B Round

Y Combinator's Paul Graham advises founders to "do things that don't scale," which includes manually recruiting your first users. This could mean going door-to-door like Airbnb, pulling out a laptop at events like the Stripe founders, or even just starting with a single, highly influential user to perfect the experience, a tactic one YC company used with Sam Altman. Before writing a line of code, you can validate demand by creating a simple landing page that explains your value proposition and collects emails. Many successful founders got their start by posting mockups and a waitlist link on Reddit; one company gathered nearly a thousand sign-ups in 24 hours with this method. Pre-launch waitlists on platforms like BetaList and Product Hunt can also build an initial audience. The most effective way to find your first users is to go where they already congregate online. This means becoming an active, helpful member of niche subreddits, Slack/Discord groups, and industry forums—not just spamming your link. Identify the "watering holes" where potential users feel pain and actively seek solutions. For B2B startups, cold outreach on LinkedIn can be effective, but it requires a strategy. Instead of a hard pitch, offer immediate value, such as a mini-audit, a helpful resource, or relevant data. Your initial goal isn't to sell, but to start a conversation to understand their workflow and pain points. Your first users should come from your personal and professional network. These early adopters are more forgiving of a buggy MVP and can provide crucial, honest feedback. Don't ask them to sign up; ask for introductions to people who are genuinely experiencing the problem you aim to solve. The goal of early conversations is not to pitch, but to listen and learn. Ask open-ended questions about how users currently solve the problem and what's most frustrating about their process. YC's Garry Tan emphasizes that founders should act like ethnographers, seeking to deeply understand a user's motivations and goals. A structured discovery process involves forming hypotheses about your target users and their problems, then conducting interviews to validate or disprove them. Aim for 20-30 conversations to start seeing clear patterns in their responses. This feedback loop is essential for refining your product and ensuring you're building something people actually want. Once you've identified potential early adopters, make them a "killer offer" they can't refuse, such as direct access to you via WhatsApp for support. This high-touch approach creates an exceptional experience that makes up for an imperfect early product and turns initial users into evangelists.