FirstTen

Inspiration

A startup can build a useful product and still struggle because it cannot find its first customers. Early outreach is often tracked in scattered notes or spreadsheets. Founders may spend time and money on a channel without knowing whether it is working.

I created FirstTen to help solo and early-stage founders learn from those first customer conversations.

What it does

FirstTen lets a founder record who they contacted, which channel they used, the message angle, the time and money spent, the result, objections, and follow-ups. Its dashboard compares channels and shows customer acquisition estimates based on the founder’s assumptions.

The app also has optional AI tools for market, competitor, and prospect research, feedback analysis, outreach help, and experiment planning.

How I built it

I built the interface with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. The backend uses Python’s standard library and stores records in SQLite. The web app is hosted on Render. Optional AI features connect to OpenAI; users need to provide their own API key, and AI use may cost money.

Challenges and what I learned

One challenge was making outreach quick to log while still capturing useful details. Another was presenting costs and customer estimates without making small or fictional sample results look like proof. I learned that a rejection can provide useful feedback, but a small number of responses cannot prove that a business idea will succeed.

What’s next

FirstTen is an early prototype. The public demo uses fictional sample records and temporary storage. Next, I want to show it to real founders, learn which parts help them most, and test whether they would pay for it. A future version could offer a free basic plan and a paid plan with more experiments and research tools.