There is no 'general' growth playbook. The channel that gets a B2B SaaS to 1,000 customers will bankrupt a consumer app, and vice versa. The First 1000 Customers Database tags every YC company by the channel that actually worked for them. The distribution is narrower than founders expect.
The channel mix
| Company type | Channel that worked | Share |
|---|---|---|
| B2B SaaS (engineering tools) | Founder cold email + HN launch | ~52% |
| B2B SaaS (ops/HR/finance) | Founder-led outbound (LinkedIn + email) | ~46% |
| Consumer social | One viral post (Twitter / TikTok / Reddit) | ~61% |
| Consumer marketplace | Manual supply seeding in one city | ~58% |
| Fintech | Partnership with existing distribution | ~44% |
| Devtools / API | GitHub launch + docs SEO | ~49% |
The cold-email pattern that actually worked
- Sent by a founder, not a BDR (every B2B SaaS survivor in the sample).
- Subject line was 4–7 words, lowercase, no emoji.
- Body referenced a specific recent action by the recipient (raised a round, hired a role, shipped a feature).
- Asked for a 15-minute call, not 30. The smaller ask converted ~3x better.
The viral-post pattern (consumer)
Across the consumer companies in the database, the 'viral moment' was almost never an accident. It was the third or fourth deliberate attempt at a launch post — same hook, refined three times. Founders who treated launch as a single event consistently underperformed founders who treated it as a campaign of 4–6 posts over two weeks.
Key takeaways
- B2B = founder cold email; consumer = a campaign of launch posts.
- Marketplace founders manually seed supply in one city before any code.
- Cold emails ask for 15 min, not 30. Sent by a founder, not BDR.
- Viral 'moments' are usually the 3rd–4th deliberate attempt.