Finding your first 10 customers without ads

The usual advice is to build an audience first. Post every day. Grow a page. Then sell.

For a small business that is backwards, and it is why so many people spend six months making content and nothing else. You do not need a thousand followers. You need ten paying customers, and you can find them this month without spending a peso on ads.

This is the playbook we see working for Filipino founders, whether you are selling ulam, a service, or an app.

Why ten, and why not ads yet

Ten paying customers is enough to learn from. One buyer might have been your friend being kind. Ten tells you something is actually there, and it gives you real answers to the questions that matter: what they paid for, what they complained about, and whether they came back.

Ads are a way to pour more people into something that works. Before you know it works, they mostly buy you expensive confusion. There is also a cost most sellers do not know about: if you buy Facebook, Google or TikTok ads as a business, the BIR expects you to file and remit 12% VAT on those purchases yourself, even if you are not VAT-registered. One more reason to wait.

Step 1: Write down twenty names

Not a target market. Twenty actual people you could message today without it being strange.

• neighbours on your street or in your building
• former officemates and classmates
• your church, barkada, or family group chats
• the people who already buy something similar from someone else
• the owner of the stall beside yours, who has customers you do not

Twenty is achievable in one sitting. Write them down.

Step 2: Message them one at a time

Not a broadcast post. Not "pa-share naman". A message to one person, using their name, about the specific thing you think they would want.

"Hi Ate Joy! I started making frozen siomai, 30 pieces for P250. I remember you buy for the kids' baon. I can drop off a pack Saturday morning if you want one?"

Notice what that message does. It is personal. It names a price. It makes the next step tiny. Ten messages like that beat one post to five hundred people.

Step 3: Ask for the sale, not an opinion

"Would you buy this?" gets politeness. Everyone says yes to a hypothetical.

"I have five ready, P120 each, I can deliver tomorrow" gets an actual answer.

And free samples are not customers. Giving something away teaches you that people accept free things, which you already knew. You only learn whether someone will part with money by asking for money. A small discount for your first ten buyers is fine. Free is not a test.

Where Filipino customers actually are

Once you have worked through your own twenty names, widen the circle to places where your customers already gather. Go where they are instead of making them come to you.

Facebook groups

Your barangay, subdivision, condo, school parents' group, or hobby group. Read the rules first. Many allow selling only on certain days or in a pinned thread. Post like a neighbour, not a brand: a real photo, a clear price, how to order, and where you are.

Viber and Messenger communities

Building and village group chats often have a buy-and-sell culture already. Ask the admin before posting. Being invited in by the admin is worth more than ten posts.

The palengke, the terminal, the office lobby

For food and physical goods, physical presence still wins. A small table at a weekend market, a tie-up with a canteen, or a standing order with one office pantry can be your first ten customers in a week. Ask the stall owner or building admin what it costs to set up. It is often less than a month of ads.

Campus

If your product fits students, orgs and student councils are the fastest door. Offer something useful for an event (snacks, printing, a tool that solves an org problem) and let the officers be your first customers and your first word of mouth.

For apps: your first users are also a group chat

If you are building an app, the same rule applies. Your first ten users are people you can personally message. Find them in communities where the problem lives, offer to set them up yourself, and ask for feedback by voice note or a quick call. Our community board is also a place to ask for testers.

Step 4: Deliver better than you promised

Early, a little extra, wrapped properly, a handwritten thank-you. Your first ten customers are not your revenue. They are your evidence and your first word of mouth. In a barangay, word of mouth is not a marketing theory. It is how the eleventh customer finds you.

Step 5: Ask the one question that matters

After they have bought and used it, ask: "Would you buy this again?"

Then ask: "Who else do you know who would want this?"

If the answer to the first is yes and they name someone for the second, you have a business starting. If the answer is a polite maybe, ask what would make it a yes, and listen without defending.

Keep a simple list

A notebook or a spreadsheet with three columns is enough: name, what they bought, and whether they came back. Your suki are the business. Keeping one customer costs you almost nothing. Finding a new one always costs something, even if it is only your time.

A one-week plan

• Day 1: Write your twenty names.
• Day 2 to 3: Send ten personal messages a day with a price and a next step.
• Day 4: Post once in two relevant groups where selling is allowed.
• Day 5 to 6: Deliver, over-deliver, and say thank you.
• Day 7: Ask each buyer if they would buy again and who else might want it.

Then record a pitch on Icreatechs about what you learned. "Ten people bought this week, here is what surprised me, and here is what I need next" is exactly the kind of honest pitch the community rallies behind.