- Applied to devops jobs on Angelfish, target companies with 10-20 employees
- Passed their phone screen, learned about the particular automation problems they had
- Offered them a SaaS subscription with a promise to set up a working solution in my product for their problems.
- Explained that subscribing to my service would be much cheaper than hiring me.
Most declined, a few were offended at my bait and switch, but 3 of them became my early customers and used my service for years, eventually taking over and maintaining their own solutions.
I think identifying the right customers- other startups with VC cash that were too small to have too much red tape and had big problems without tools and staff- made this work in the early days. It was a blast working on this stuff back then.
I found out, years after deciding to cut back on my coffee intake, that my dose was in that range: when the only thing you drink is instant coffee (as in, not even plain water) and you're making it will multiple table spoons per cup instead of teaspoons…