Top 11 'Anti-Scale' Growth Hacks to Learn for Early-Stage Entrepreneurs to Win Their First 100 Fans - Goh Ling Yong
In the world of startups, "scale" is the holy grail. We're obsessed with it. We design systems for it, we hire for it, and we chase venture capital to achieve it faster. The dream is to build a perfect, automated machine that acquires thousands of users while we sleep. But what if I told you that for an early-stage entrepreneur, this obsession with scale is actually a trap?
Before you can get to 10,000 customers, you have to get to 100. And the path to your first 100 raving fans looks nothing like the path to 100,000. It’s not about automation, mass marketing, or complex funnels. It’s about doing things that feel inefficient, time-consuming, and utterly, gloriously unscalable. This is the "anti-scale" philosophy, famously championed by Y Combinator's Paul Graham, and it’s your secret weapon.
Getting your first 100 fans isn't just a numbers game; it's a learning game. It’s about building a deep, almost empathetic understanding of your initial users. These are the people who will give you the brutal feedback you need, become your first case studies, and shout about you from the rooftops. To win them over, you need to roll up your sleeves and do the manual work. Here are 11 "anti-scale" growth hacks to help you do just that.
1. The Art of Manual, Hyper-Personalized Outreach
Forget the cold email blast to a list of 1,000 prospects. At this stage, that's just sophisticated spam. Instead, focus on finding 10 perfect potential users and crafting a message so personal and relevant they can't possibly ignore it. This means becoming a digital detective.
Spend 30 minutes researching each person. Read their LinkedIn posts, listen to a podcast they were on, check out their Twitter feed, or read their company's blog. Find a genuine point of connection or a specific problem they've mentioned that you can solve. Your goal isn't to pitch; it's to start a conversation with a message that says, "I see you, I understand your world, and I built something specifically for you."
Example: Imagine you're building a tool for freelance writers. You find a writer on Twitter complaining about the hassle of creating invoices. Instead of a generic DM, you could send a short, personalized Loom video: "Hey Sarah, I saw your tweet about invoicing headaches. I'm building a tool to fix exactly that. Here’s a 60-second look at how it could save you an hour this month. No strings attached, just thought it might help!" This approach has a response rate that blows mass emails out of the water.
2. The 'Concierge MVP' Experience
An MVP (Minimum Viable Product) doesn't have to be a piece of software. In the beginning, you can be the product. The Concierge MVP approach involves manually delivering the value your app will eventually automate. This is one of the most powerful ways to validate your idea and learn from users.
If you're building a meal-planning app, don't spend months coding. Find five people and offer to be their personal meal planner for a month via email and spreadsheets. You'll learn firsthand about their dietary needs, their struggles with grocery shopping, and what features are truly essential. You're getting paid (or at least getting validation) to do customer research.
This hands-on method provides an unparalleled feedback loop. You're not guessing what users want; you're experiencing their problems alongside them. The insights you gain from manually fulfilling your service for your first 10 users are more valuable than a survey of 1,000 potential ones.
3. Host Intimate, In-Person (or Virtual) Events
Big, flashy webinars and conferences are for later. Your goal is to create genuine connections. Host a small, curated event for 5-10 people in your target audience. This could be a "Pizza & Problems" night, a coffee meetup, or a focused virtual workshop on a topic they care about.
The focus of the event should be on providing value and fostering community, not on pitching your product. For 90% of the time, facilitate a discussion about the challenges they face in their industry. In the last 10%, you can briefly share what you're working on as a potential solution to one of the problems discussed.
These small gatherings transform you from a faceless startup into a real person who understands and cares. The relationships you build in a two-hour dinner are a hundred times stronger than a thousand email opens. These attendees often become your most passionate early adopters and champions.
4. Send Handwritten Thank You Notes
In a world of automated emails and notifications, a physical, handwritten note cuts through the noise like nothing else. It's a simple, powerful gesture that shows you genuinely appreciate your early users' time, feedback, or business. It’s tangible proof that there's a real, caring human behind the screen.
Buy a stack of nice notecards and stamps. Every time someone signs up, gives you amazing feedback, or becomes a paying customer, take five minutes to write a personal note. Mention something specific from your interaction with them to show it’s not a form letter. "Hi David, thanks so much for signing up! Your feedback on the dashboard layout was incredibly helpful, and we're already working on it."
This tiny act creates a "wow" moment that people remember and talk about. How many companies have sent you a handwritten note? Probably very few. Be one of them. That's how you turn a user into a loyal fan.
5. Become a Genuinely Helpful Member of Niche Communities
Your first 100 fans are already gathered somewhere online. They're in niche subreddits, Slack groups, Discord servers, or specialized forums, discussing their problems every day. Your job is to find these communities and become a valuable member, not a drive-by spammer.
Spend weeks or even months just listening and helping. Answer questions, offer advice, and share your expertise without ever mentioning your product. Build a reputation as a helpful expert who understands the community's challenges. This is a principle I, Goh Ling Yong, have always emphasized with the startups I advise: build trust before you ask for anything.
Once you've established that trust, you can organically introduce your solution when the context is right. For instance, in a thread where someone is describing the exact problem you solve, you can say, "I actually struggled with this a lot, which is why I built a small tool to help. Happy to share a link if it's helpful." The community will be far more receptive because you've already proven your value.
6. Offer 'White-Glove' Onboarding
For your first users, your onboarding process should be a personal, one-on-one consultation. Forget scalable self-serve tours and tooltips for a moment. Get on a 30-60 minute Zoom call with every single new user (or team) and personally walk them through your product.
Use this time to help them set up their account, import their data, and achieve their first "aha!" moment. But more importantly, use it as an intelligence-gathering mission. Watch where they get confused. Listen to the language they use to describe their problems. Ask them what they were using before and why they decided to try your solution.
This unscalable process does two things. First, it ensures your first users become deeply engaged and successful with your product, dramatically reducing churn. Second, it gives you a treasure trove of qualitative data that will help you build a better product and a scalable onboarding flow later on.
7. Leverage Your Personal Network (The Right Way)
Your friends, family, and former colleagues can be a powerful starting point, but you have to approach them correctly. Don't just blast a generic "Check out my new startup!" message on Facebook. This is lazy and often ineffective. Instead, be specific and personal in your asks.
Segment your network. Who is your ideal customer? Who works in your target industry? Who is a super-connector? For each person, send a personal message. Don't ask them to buy; ask them for help or feedback. People are much more willing to help than to be sold to.
A good request might sound like this: "Hey Alex, hope you're well! I know you're a pro at B2B marketing. I'm building a new tool in that space and am really struggling with the positioning. Could I steal 15 minutes of your time next week to get your gut reaction? Your feedback would be a huge help." This is respectful, specific, and makes the other person feel like an expert.
8. Create 'Shoulder Content' for Micro-Influencers
Forget paying six figures for a mega-influencer. Your first 100 fans are more likely to trust a micro-influencer—a respected blogger, podcaster, or creator with a small but highly engaged audience in your niche. And the best way to get on their radar isn't with money, but with value.
Create "shoulder content"—valuable content that is adjacent to your product but directly helps the influencer. For example, if you have a software for financial advisors, you could analyze a recent market trend and create a set of beautiful, data-rich charts. Then, email a financial blogger and say, "Hi Mark, I love your analysis of X. I created these charts on the topic and thought your audience might find them useful. Feel free to use them in your next post, no credit needed."
Nine times out of ten, they'll not only use your content but will also give you credit and check out what you do. You've given them something of value for free, which is the best way to start a relationship and get noticed by their dedicated audience.
9. Physically Go Where Your Customers Congregate
Sometimes the best way to find users is to literally get up from your computer and go to where they are. This is what the Stripe founders famously did, offering to personally install their payment processing software for other startups. It's direct, personal, and incredibly effective.
If you're building software for restaurants, spend an afternoon walking around and talking to restaurant managers during their downtime. If you're building an app for university students, hang out on campus and offer to buy students coffee in exchange for 10 minutes of their time to look at your prototype.
This tactic forces you to get out of your echo chamber and have real conversations with real people. You'll learn the nuances of their daily lives and problems in a way you never could through a screen. The people you meet face-to-face are far more likely to remember you and give your product a try.
10. Run a Hyper-Targeted Micro-Giveaway
Giveaways can be powerful, but most early-stage startups do them wrong. Giving away a generic prize like an iPad or an Amazon gift card attracts a broad audience of freebie-seekers, not your ideal customers. Instead, run a micro-giveaway with a prize that only a true fan of your niche would desire.
If you have a project management tool for creative agencies, don't give away an iPad. Give away a one-year subscription to Adobe Creative Cloud, a high-end Moleskine notebook set, and a respected book on design thinking. The prize itself acts as a filter.
Promote this giveaway only in the niche communities where your target audience hangs out. The goal isn't to get 10,000 entries; it's to get 50 entries from the exact right people. You can then personally reach out to every single person who entered, thank them, and offer them a special extended trial of your product.
11. Become Your First Customer's Personal Consultant
Your first few paying customers are more precious than gold. To keep them and turn them into evangelists, you need to go far beyond what's expected. Don't just be a software provider; be their personal consultant. Your goal is to make them wildly successful, even if it means helping them with things outside your product's core features.
If you sell an SEO tool, don't just help them use the tool. Offer to do a free 30-minute audit of their content strategy. If you sell a social media scheduler, offer to review their recent posts and give them a few content ideas. Make their success your mission.
This level of service is, by definition, unscalable. You can't do it for 1,000 customers. But you can do it for 10. And those 10 customers will feel so valued and become so successful that they will provide you with the glowing testimonials, in-depth case studies, and word-of-mouth referrals you need to get the next 100.
From Fans to Foundation
The journey to your first 100 fans is a marathon of small, deliberate, and personal actions. It's about trading scalability for learning, automation for connection, and breadth for depth. Each of these "anti-scale" hacks is designed to do more than just acquire a user; it's designed to create a genuine relationship and build a deep understanding of who you're serving.
This manual, hands-on work isn't just a temporary phase. It's the foundation upon which all your future, scalable growth will be built. The insights you gain, the language you learn, and the superfans you create in this stage will inform your marketing, product development, and company culture for years to come. So embrace the grind, do the things that don't scale, and go win those first 100 fans.
What's one "anti-scale" tactic you've used or plan to use this week? Share your experience in the comments below—I'd love to hear what's working for you
About the Author
Goh Ling Yong is a content creator and digital strategist sharing insights across various topics. Connect and follow for more content:
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