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How to Find Your First 10 Clients
Starting from scratch is brutal. No clients, no revenue, no proof that your offer works. Just you, your service, and the uncomfortable reality that nobody knows you exist yet.
After scaling ColdIQ to $6.5M+ ARR in three years and helping 70+ B2B companies build their GTM engines, the path from zero to those first 10 clients is clear. It's not complicated, but it requires discipline and patience when results aren't showing up yet.
This is exactly what I'd do if I had to start over tomorrow with no clients and no budget.
Step 1: Build Visibility
In the beginning, you have more time than money. That means choosing a marketing channel that requires effort rather than budget.
The most effective low-cost channels for getting your brand out there are:
Creating LinkedIn posts. LinkedIn reaches B2B decision-makers where they already spend time. The platform's algorithm distributes quality content beyond your immediate network, creating visibility with minimal investment.
Writing blog articles. Publishing long-form content establishes expertise and drives organic search traffic over time. Each article becomes a permanent asset that compounds as your content library grows.
Recording YouTube videos. Video builds trust faster than text. It demonstrates your expertise while showing prospects who you are as a person, not just a brand name.
Being active in niche communities. Answering questions in Slack groups, forums, and industry communities positions you as helpful rather than promotional. People remember who solved their problem.
I tested all of these channels when starting ColdIQ. LinkedIn worked best for me and delivered results in the shortest timeframe. It's what I recommend to every B2B founder just getting started.
The key is consistency. One post changes nothing. But publishing regularly for three months builds a body of work that demonstrates expertise and keeps you visible to your target audience.
Software for content creation:
- Canva or Figma for designing visual assets and graphics
- Taplio or Scripe for content ideation and inspiration from high-performing posts
Start with one channel and commit to it fully before adding others. Spreading yourself thin across multiple platforms dilutes your effort and slows progress.
Step 2: Direct traffic
Your content efforts will generate interest. Interested visitors will check your website or social profiles. Your goal is simple: help them understand how you solve their problem as quickly as possible.
The most effective way to do this is recording a 5-minute video sales letter that breaks down your offering. Video builds trust faster than text. It shows you're real, credible, and invested in helping prospects understand the value you provide.
Not everyone who visits will be ready to buy immediately. For those prospects, create a lead magnet to capture email addresses. This could be a free template, checklist, or guide that solves a specific problem. Once you have their email, nurture them with valuable content over time.
For visitors who don't provide their email address, use visitor identification software to de-anonymize them. These tools reveal which companies visited your site, even if they didn't fill out a form. This gives you warm leads to follow up with.
Software for conversion:
- Wistia for hosting video sales letters
- Webflow or Framer for building landing pages
- Midbound or Instantly for visitor identification
Your landing page should answer three questions within seconds:
- What problem do you solve?
- Who do you solve it for?
- What should they do next?
Anything more complex slows down decision-making. Keep it direct and focused on one clear action.
Step 3: Reach Out to High-Fit Leads
Many prospects will engage with your content but won't schedule a call on their own. They're interested but not ready to reach out first.
This is where proactive outreach makes the difference.
Reach out to every prospect who fits your ideal customer profile but hasn't messaged you yet. These are people who engaged with your posts, visited your site, or showed interest in some way.
Your best prospects often look like your existing customers or the companies you admire. Find similar companies to target:
Lookalike Finder Tool
Write your first 25-50 messages by hand before attempting any automation. No templates, no bulk sending. Just personalized outreach to people who already know who you are.
Identify the right decision-makers at target companies before crafting your outreach:
People Finder Tool
A simple framework that works:
"Hey {{name}}, seems like my post on {{topic}} resonated with you. Are you working on {{potential initiatives}}? Happy to swap notes if that's helpful."
The magic of writing manually is that it forces you to refine your messaging with every message. You'll notice which angles resonate and which fall flat. You'll discover patterns in what gets responses and what gets ignored.
These patterns become the foundation for scaling your outreach later through automation. But you can only discover them by doing the manual work first.
Software for outreach:
- Instantly for email outreach at scale
- Expandi for LinkedIn direct messages with safe automation
- lemlist for multichannel sequences combining email, LinkedIn, and other channels
- Wiza, Prospeo, LeadMagic, or FullEnrich for finding and verifying email addresses
Before you can reach out, you need verified contact information. Cross-reference multiple databases to surface valid email addresses for free:
Email Finder Tool
For high-priority prospects, phone outreach converts faster than email. Find verified mobile numbers for free:
Mobile Finder Tool
The key is relevance. Reference something specific they engaged with. Make the message about them, not you. Offer value before asking for anything.
Timing matters. Reach out when prospects show active buying signals like hiring, funding, or technology changes:
Intent Signals Finder
Tech Stack Finder
Step 4: Repeat for 90 Days
This framework works. It sounds simple, but executing it consistently is harder than it looks.
Working hard is difficult on its own. But working hard when you're doubting whether there's a point is even harder.
In the first weeks or months, you'll get zero results. No clients, no meaningful traction, just effort going out with nothing coming back. That's when most people quit.
To make it work, you must convince yourself that you're not doing this for nothing, even when the evidence suggests otherwise.
Commit to repeating these steps for three months straight:
- Publish content consistently on your chosen channel
- Optimize your landing page based on feedback
- Reach out to good-fit prospects with personalized messages
Repeat these steps enough times and you'll inevitably improve. Your messaging gets sharper. Your content resonates more. Your outreach converts better.
Improve enough and you'll start seeing results. One client turns into two. Two turns into five. Five turns into ten. And those first ten become the case studies that make the next ten easier to close.
Conclusion
Why Most People Fail at This
The framework isn't complicated: build visibility, capture interest, reach out to warm leads, repeat.
Most people fail because they quit before compounding effects kick in. They post for weeks with limited engagement and assume LinkedIn doesn't work.
They send 20 messages, get 2 replies, and declare outreach dead. They launch a landing page, see 50 visitors, and think nobody wants their offer.
But compounding takes time. Your 50th post performs better than your 5th because you've built an audience. Your 100th outreach converts better than your 10th because your messaging improved. Your 500th visitor is more likely to convert than your 50th because you optimized.
Results don't show up immediately. They show up after enough repetitions to refine your approach and build momentum.
The Reality of Building From Zero
Starting from zero means working without proof your effort matters. You're creating content nobody sees yet, reaching out to prospects who don't respond, improving a landing page that barely gets traffic.
That phase tests whether you're serious about building something or just interested in the idea.
Here's what changes once you push through: those first 10 clients become proof your offer works. They turn into case studies, testimonials, and referrals. The next 10 come easier because you're not starting from zero anymore.
The hardest part is getting those first 10. After that, momentum builds. But you have to earn it through consistent execution when it feels like nothing is working.
I built ColdIQ to $6.5M+ ARR in three years using this framework. The first clients came from LinkedIn posts that took months to gain traction. Early outreach had terrible reply rates. The landing page converted poorly.
But I kept going. Eventually, the compounding kicked in. Content reached more people. Outreach converted better. Referrals started coming in.
That path is available to anyone willing to stick with it long enough to see results.
FAQ
Most founders see their first 1-3 clients within 60-90 days of consistent execution. The timeline depends on your market, offer clarity, and how well you execute each step. The key is committing to the full 90 days before evaluating results. Early traction is slow, but it compounds once you've built enough visibility and refined your messaging.
You can start with zero budget. LinkedIn, outreach, and basic landing pages are free or low-cost. The trade-off is time: you'll spend more hours creating content and writing personalized messages. Once you have your first few clients and some revenue, you can reinvest in paid tools to scale faster (email finders, automation platforms, paid ads).
How many messages should I send per day when doing manual outreach?
What if I'm not getting any responses to my outreach after a few weeks?
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