How We Got Our First 10 Customers

Welcome to Gleap’s new blog series! Before Gleap, there was BugBattle - the first version of our vision to simplify bug reporting for development teams everywhere. We’re creating this blog to give early-stage SaaS founders a behind-the-scenes look into our journey. We are going to share what’s worked for us, what didn’t, and the lessons we’ve learned along the way.

Let’s start with the story of BugBattle and how we found our very first 10 customers. At that time, having 10 customers felt super exciting.

Our Story Begins with a Real Problem

BugBattle started as a solution to a frustration we knew all too well. Back when we ran a software agency, managing bug reports was a constant pain point. Clients would send vague bug descriptions. This led to endless back-and-forth emails to get the details we needed to reproduce and fix the issue. It was an inefficient, frustrating process.

That’s when we decided to take matters into our own hands. We built BugBattle. A tool designed to automatically track all the important data in apps and websites needed to reproduce issues. It gave us all the context we needed in one comprehensive report. With BugBattle, we finally had a clear, streamlined way to handle bug reports and focus on what mattered most: the work.

Starting a company to solve your own problem has a huge advantage. You’re deeply passionate about the product because it solves a genuine pain point that you’ve faced. That passion doesn’t just drive you; it resonates with others who struggle with the same issue. However, I will say that the drive is the most important part as tough times will always appear on the horizon at some point.

Getting Those First 10 Customers

When we first launched BugBattle, we didn’t have a lot of experience in marketing or sales. We simply put it out there, using it in our own agency, and hoped it would resonate with others. Luckily, word began to spread. Agencies in our region that we worked with or who heard about BugBattle started asking if they could try it out for themselves.

Our first 10 customers came through pure word of mouth. Each of these agencies understood the headache of trying to track down complete bug reports. When they saw BugBattle in action, they knew it would make their work lives easier. They came to us not because of a big marketing push but because they saw the real value in what we’d built.

These early adopters didn’t need convincing. They saw the solution BugBattle provided and recognized its usefulness right away. We learned that when you’re building something that truly addresses a pain point, it creates organic demand. People talk, especially when they see a product that solves a real problem.

Lessons Learned

1. Solve a Real Problem: Building a tool that addresses a genuine issue gives you a strong foundation. We didn’t have to convince people to use BugBattle. They already understood the need for a better way to handle bug reporting.
2. Be Passionate About What You’re Building: If you believe in your product, others will, too. Passion is contagious, and it can help others believe in your vision and your product’s potential. Also, you are going to need that passion when the going gets rough.
3. The Power of Word of Mouth: Those first 10 customers showed us how powerful word of mouth can be. You don’t need a huge budget to find your first users. Build something valuable, and people will talk about it.

Getting our first 10 customers felt natural and easy. But that’s when the struggle started. How can we reach people outside our bubble? We thought that putting BugBattle on the market would be enough for it to simply skyrocket. Well surprise, that’s not how it worked. Find out how we struggled to get to our first 10k of revenue and what we learned along the way in our next blogpost out of this new series.

With this new blog section, we’d love to start a conversation with fellow founders going through similar challenges. If our story resonates with you or if you’d like to connect, feel free to reach out either via email, LinkedIn or the Gleap widget. We’d love to hear about your experiences and learn from each other! Talk soon.