How to Get Your First 100 App Users (With No Ad Budget)
The hardest number in an app's life isn't a million downloads. It's the first hundred real users — people you don't know who keep coming back. The good news: you don't need an ad budget for your first hundred users. You need a system and a few weeks of discipline.
This guide is ordered by what to do first and what later. It applies to both B2C and B2B apps — for B2B, direct sales pulls more weight and communities less.
1. Start before the app exists
The biggest mistake: developing quietly for six months and then "launching". You build an audience alongside the product, not after it.
- A landing page in a weekend. One page: what the app solves, who it's for, an e-mail form. A hundred e-mails before launch = a hundred users on day one.
- Build in public. Share your progress on LinkedIn or X — what you've learned, what didn't work, previews. People root for work in progress more than for finished products.
If you're still deciding what belongs in the first version, read how to plan an MVP — a smaller scope means launching sooner and getting feedback sooner.
2. Find your niche in communities
Your first hundred users aren't hiding "on the internet". They're in three to five specific places where your target audience already discusses the problem your app removes.
- Industry Facebook groups (business owners, fitness trainers, parents…) — tens of thousands of members, zero competition in quality content.
- Reddit, Discord servers and industry forums for a more technical audience.
- Local events and meetups — ten face-to-face conversations beat a thousand impressions.
The rule: help first, mention the product later. Answer twenty questions in a group and nobody will mind when you eventually link your own app.
3. Beta testers: your first 20 users, by hand
Use TestFlight on iOS and internal testing in Google Play Console on Android. Invite:
- acquaintances who match the target audience (not friends who'll "have a look and say it's nice"),
- people from the step-2 communities who showed interest,
- e-mails from your landing page.
Ask each of them for one thing: watch them during first use. Where they got stuck, what they didn't understand, when they closed the app. Ten such observations reveal more than any analytics.
4. ASO: the basics that decide
App Store Optimization is SEO for app stores. The basics are enough for a start:
| Element | What to do with it |
|---|---|
| Name | Brand + main keyword ("FitBook — class booking") |
| Subtitle/short description | The main benefit, not a slogan |
| Keywords (iOS) | Use all 100 characters, no duplicates with the name |
| Screenshots | The first two must sell the value — text overlay with the benefit |
| Reviews | Ask happy users in-app at the right moment |
ASO won't bring thousands of downloads overnight, but for niche queries ("attendance for sports clubs") you can reach top positions within weeks.
5. Content and SEO: slow but compounding
Write about the problem your app solves — not about the app. Someone searching "how to track player attendance" is your future user. One solid article a week for three months usually beats a one-off PR campaign. It's exactly the strategy we use ourselves — and we describe how to tell whether it pays off in our article on measuring app ROI.
6. Partnerships: someone else's audience, for free
Who already has your audience's trust and doesn't compete with you?
- Industry influencers and newsletter authors — offer them the product for free and a story, not money.
- Complementary services (a fitness studio app ↔ an equipment supplier) — mutual recommendations.
- Associations and federations — one e-mail to their member base gets open rates advertising can only dream of.
7. B2B: you'll sell the first 10 customers in person
For B2B apps, forget viral growth. You get your first ten customers by writing or calling them — personally, specifically, with concrete value ("we save clubs 5 hours of admin a week"). It's slow and it doesn't scale. That's exactly why it works: your competitors don't want to do it.
What doesn't work (but tempts you)
- Buying installs and fake reviews — stores detect it, you risk removal, and those "users" never return.
- Community spam — one link with no context = a ban and a burned reputation across the whole niche.
- A paid PR article on launch day — a one-day spike with no retention. A hundred downloads, five active, zero in a month.
- Doing all seven channels at once — pick two, do them properly for a month, then evaluate.
Measure activation, not downloads
Downloads are a vanity metric. Track:
- Activation — how many people complete the first meaningful action (first booking, first record),
- D7/D30 retention — how many return after a week and a month,
- Referrals — how many new users come recommended by existing ones.
A hundred users with 40% retention is a better foundation than ten thousand downloads with nothing left a month later.
Summary
Your first hundred users = a pre-launch landing page + three specific communities + twenty hand-held beta testers + ASO basics. No magic, just sequence and consistency.
Still planning your app? Go through the complete guide from idea to App Store, price your project in the configurator, or discuss your plans on a consultation — we'll help you plan the launch, not just the development.
