How do solo founders get their first pilot users for a complex B2B product?

2 pointsby drguzman7 เดือนที่ผ่านมา1 comments

I’m a solo founder building an internal knowledge and HR automation engine. I’ve built everything myself so far, including multi-connector document ingestion, vector search, workflow automation, and policy generation logic.

The technical side has been hard but doable. What I’m struggling with now is getting real users to test the product. It’s a B2B tool, so the usual “launch on Product Hunt and hope” advice doesn’t apply. Cold outreach to founders is mostly ignored, and most companies want something that is already proven before they try it.

For founders who have been through this:

How did you get your first pilot users?

What actually worked beyond theory and generic advice?

Did you offer long free trials, custom work, discounts, or just persistence?

How did you convince someone to take a chance on something early?

Any lessons from the trenches would help.

My goal is to learn from people who’ve navigated the early stage where the tech exists but the user feedback loop is not forming yet.

1 comments

sturza7 เดือนที่ผ่านมา

If you built it FOR someone(a business), you are already on the wrong path. You should have built it WITH someone(a business) and you'd already have feedback and real world usage. Maybe next time around start with a real problem (confirmed by a business) rather than how you want the world to work.