What’s one unexpected user acquisition strategy that worked for you early on?
In SaaS, early user acquisition can be a major hurdle, and sometimes traditional marketing channels like ads or SEO aren’t enough or cost-effective. I’ve seen products like Notion leverage community-driven growth, or Airtable use referral programs deeply integrated into their onboarding to scale users organically. Similarly, Calendly grew through partnerships and embedding itself into workflows users already had.
I’m curious beyond classic marketing, what’s one unconventional user acquisition strategy that worked surprisingly well for your product in its early days?
Were you targeting a niche audience or solving a very specific pain point?
How did you implement and measure the success of that strategy?
Did it help you attract engaged, long-term users rather than just volume?
How did that approach evolve as your product scaled?
Would love to hear detailed examples and lessons learned from your own journeys!
Replies
No silver bullet there unfortunately.
Some immediate successes are aberrations otherwise it's a long journey.
Community engagement - giving real value to the community goes a long way in getting references. (note that reactions or comments are not the measure at all).
Of course , your product itself should carry a long term value, should be easy to implement, adopt and have great quality.
I would say test what works for you, get first few paid users first and then plan your strategy.