Zero-Cost Cold Start: 10 Methods from AFFiNE's Co-Founder
People keep asking me: how do you cold-start?
The most effective approach costs nothing.
This isn’t something only broke founders do. It’s what people who truly understand how PMF happens actually do. AFFiNE co-founder Iris shared two years of overseas go-to-market experience on a podcast: 1,000 GitHub stars in 72 hours after open-sourcing, 10,000 in 43 days, users across 200+ countries. Here are her core cold-start methods.
Two Cases That Wake You Up
HeyGen’s early days: they opened a “video studio” on Fiverr — and used it to run 1,800 user interviews. 1,800.
Lark in Southeast Asia: of the Malaysia team’s first 50 customers, 30 came from LinkedIn DMs. Not ads. Not KOLs. Twenty manual messages a day.
The lesson: cold start isn’t waiting for users. It’s going out to talk to people.
10 Zero-Cost Ways to Get Early Users
1. Your Own Network
Get over the awkwardness. Ask people you already know. Your first users are often in your contacts.
2. DM Competitor Followers
People following competitors on Twitter or LinkedIn are potential users. They’re already interested in the category.
3. LinkedIn Micro-Targeting
Target regular people, not influencers. An influencer’s inbox has 100 unread messages; a regular person’s might have one — reply rates are completely different.
4. Reddit Keyword Search
Search for pain points you solve, then reply with genuine value. Pro tip: lurk for 1-2 weeks before posting. Reddit has real users, hard to buy traffic, but trust is durable once earned.
5. Hacker News Show HN
A lottery ticket — hit the front page and you get hundreds of stars. Don’t rely on it alone, but worth trying.
6. Product Hunt
ROI is declining, but new products can still try. Category matters — tech audiences bring real users; non-tech can still get a ranking boost.
7. Fiverr / Upwork
Spend a little to hire people for research and contact finding. HeyGen’s 1,800 interviews came from this path.
8. Events
Meetups, hackathons, online or offline. Five minutes face-to-face beats 100 DMs.
9. Complementary Product Partnerships
Find projects with overlapping but non-competing users. Cross-promote at zero cost. Both sides win because incremental users cost nothing.
10. Cold Email
Personalize. Show you’ve read their content. Mass templates = spam.
Execution: Combine, Don’t Spray
Don’t look “busy” across 8 platforms simultaneously. Pick 3-5 methods and execute.
- 10 messages with no reply? The method isn’t wrong — your sample size is too small
- Send 100, then go deep with 5 people
- Define your first wave of paying-intent users, find where they hang out, go there
Same principle as first-principles startup review: don’t cast a wide net — go all-in on one channel to get your first 100 paying users.
The Hidden Community Cold-Start Trick
Iris shared something easy to miss: strangers in a community don’t talk to each other.
The fix: have a real person (support) DM new members — thank them for joining, share a guide and useful links, offer help anytime. If someone chats 5-6 screens with support, schedule a meeting. Trust in the person transfers to trust in the product, and they start speaking up in the community.
Three Mindsets for Small Overseas Teams
First, aesthetics differ wildly by country. toC products need real localization, not just translation.
Second, before $1M ARR, focus on toC + PLG. Get VOC (voice of customer) through organic growth — listen to needs, don’t show muscle.
Third, not knowing overseas channels is the biggest trap. Twitter, Reddit, Medium, Hacker News, Discord, Slack, Telegram are all mature. Lurk in competitor communities and study their playbooks frame by frame.
There Is No Shortcut — and That’s the Shortcut
Combine 3-5 methods. Send 100 DMs. Go deep with 5 people.
Most people hear “there’s no shortcut” and immediately go looking for one anyway. That’s the information asymmetry — the people actually willing to do the work are fewer than you think.
Source: Cyber Island Vol 14 · Interview with AFFiNE Co-Founder Iris (Part 1)
Comments