How to find early adopter customers for your startup
Fuel your growth and get invaluable feedback
Early adopter customers are the lifeblood of an early stage startup. They fuel your initial revenue growth, provide invaluable feedback on your product and pave the way for your success. Without them your growth will stall so it is vital to find them as efficiently as possible.
A common misconception about early adopters is that they are found in a certain profile of company — other startups. This misconception leads to the common mistake of using the firmographics of your first few startup customers to build your ideal customer profile, develop your target list and launch a sales effort only to see your win rate plummet.
The reality is that an early adopter is a type of person, not a type of company and that you can find both early and late adopters in all sizes and stages of companies. Running into late adopters unexpectedly at early stage companies is a key reason why your win rates plummet after an initial success. For this reason it is just as important to profile your target buyers as it is to profile your target companies.
In the old days you had to try to talk to every prospect 1:1 in order to figure out if they were an early or late adopter, which was very time consuming. In today’s market it’s much easier as there are multiple online signals that indicate if a buyer is an early adopter.
Here are 7 early adopter signals, how to find them and how to implement them in your go-to-market
1) They are very active on LinkedIn and/or Twitter
Early adopters are highly active on mainstream social media because they like to stay on top of new trends and learn from other early adopters.
Example signals include frequent commenting on thought leadership posts and having an active profile on an emerging platform.
How to find them on LinkedIn and/or Twitter
Download the LinkedIn or Twitter profiles of people who comment on relevant posts, filter out the short/pithy/spam comments and what remains will give you a good list of early adopter profiles.
You can use an automation tool like PhantomBuster to speed up this task.
2) They are active in Slack communities
Early adopters participate in communities for similar reasons as being highly active on social media — to learn from other early adopters. Slack communities offer a more focused version of LinkedIn and Twitter where you can have deeper conversations and ask for advice.
Example signals include posting regularly in active channels and being among the first to join a new community.
How to find them in Slack communities:
Join or have a colleague join the most relevant Slack community for your buyer persona.
Find the most active channel and note down the names and profile information of the people who have posted in the last 90 days.
If the community is newly established, find the channel where new members are announced or introduced and note down their information.
Put the names, company names and job titles into a google sheet and search for them on LinkedIn. You can use an automation tool like PhantomBuster to speed up this task.
IMPORTANT: Do not contact the person through the Slack community. Most communities have guidelines against soliciting for business, so your advances will not be welcomed and you may get banned.
3) They are active on Product Hunt
Early adopters are active on product discovery sites like Product Hunt because they are curious about innovation and are drawn towards new products.
Example signals include leaving reviews and ratings on products that are relevant to use cases your buyer typically deals with.
How to find them on Product Hunt
Pick the Product Hunt category that is closest to your product.
Pick the 3-5 products with the most reviews in the category.
Scroll through the reviews, making a note of the names, roles and company names of the reviewers.
Put the names, company names and job titles into a google sheet and search for them on LinkedIn. You can use an automation tool like PhantomBuster to speed up this task and grab their email at the same time.
When you reach out to them, try mentioning the product e.g. “If you like products like X, you’ll probably be interested in {your startup}”.