First Customer Acquisition Week Plan
Plan a realistic founder acquisition week with appropriate conversations, a usable offer, time limits and a decision based on actual evidence.
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When to use this template
Use this when a usable product or clearly bounded pilot exists and you can identify people who face its task. Plan the whole week, including follow-through, rather than filling every day with promotion.
Choose another approach when: You cannot deliver the offer, plan unsolicited bulk messages, or intend to count interviews and free signups as paying customers.
Gather these inputs
- A precise audience task and evidence that the people you can reach experience it.
- The actual offer, access limits and appropriate contact or participation routes.
- Available founder hours and the support capacity needed after someone responds.
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Worked example
Illustrative example, not a Crany customer result. Replace every example detail with facts you can verify.
Fictional founder has six hours to investigate a client-handoff organizer. They reserve two hours for helping volunteers, one for offer checks and three for conversations and review. They choose a relevant professional group only after checking its rules. Replies are invitations to talk, not customers. One volunteer attempts a handoff and encounters an access problem. The week ends with a decision to fix and retest access before expanding invitations. No revenue, conversion rate or acquisition result is invented.
How to use it
- Check that the offer and participation route are appropriate before scheduling activity.
- Allocate delivery and follow-through time alongside conversations, recording actual task outcomes.
- Review evidence at the end of the week and choose one bounded next allocation.
Check before using it
- A plan for acquisition does not substitute for an available offer.
- Conversations, usage and payment are counted separately.
- The founder has time to deliver what the invitation promises.
What to measure
Compare planned hours with actual effort and observed task outcomes. Use the week to learn whether a route deserves further work; a few responses do not establish a scalable channel.
Research and sources
Graham emphasizes hands-on recruitment and early-user learning. The schedule and worked example are original planning tools, not a source-tested five-day recipe or a promise of customers.
- Paul Graham: Do Things That Do Not Scale — checked 2026-10-24. Historical founder essay on manual recruitment and learning from early users; not a universal acquisition benchmark.
About Crany
Crany is an AI marketing co-founder in development for software founders and vibe coders, designed to strategize, execute approved marketing and improve based on results. This free resource is usable independently of the product. Join the public waitlist.