How do you find customers on X with almost no followers?
Search for people who are already describing the problem you solve, then join their conversation. Your follower count doesn't matter for this, because you go to them. Darko Gjorgjievski, citing their own Zero to Users research in a December 2020 Indie Hackers thread, wrote: “I've seen more founders succeeding with using Twitter search in a smart way vs. the "build an audience" approach.”
The audience route is slow at the start. One founder's May 2026 Indie Hackers post reports going from 12 to 47 followers after three months of daily posting by hand. The numbers are self-reported, and the post goes on to promote the author's own posting tool, which it says helped reach 820 followers six weeks later alongside manual engagement.
Search works from day one. Someone who posted "looking for an alternative to [competitor]" this morning is a lead today, whether you have 40 followers or 40,000.
What should you search for on X to find buyers?
Search for the problem, not your product category. X's advanced search help page lists the fields you can combine: all of these words, an exact phrase, any of these words, words to exclude, hashtags, language, posts from or in reply to an account, posts that mention an account, places and dates. It is available when you are logged in. Fill the fields like this:
| Signal | This exact phrase | Any of these words | None of these words |
|---|---|---|---|
| Asking for a tool | can anyone recommend | [category words, e.g. invoicing, CRM, scheduling] | hiring, job |
| Looking to switch | alternative to [Competitor] | (leave blank) | [your own brand] |
| Complaining about a competitor | (leave blank) | cancel, frustrating, broken, support, pricing | giveaway |
| Describing the pain | [the pain in plain words, e.g. chasing invoices] | again, every, still | [your own brand] |
| Hiring for the work you automate | we're hiring | [the role, e.g. SDR, bookkeeper] | recruiter |
Worked example: you sell invoicing software. Your five saved searches are "can anyone recommend" with invoicing or invoices; "alternative to [Competitor]"; posts mentioning @[Competitor] with cancel, support or pricing; "chasing invoices" with again or still; and "we're hiring" with bookkeeper or accounts receivable. That is five tabs to open each morning, and each one tells you why the person might want to hear from you.
For the competitor complaint row, also fill the field for posts that mention a specific account with the competitor's handle. Set the date field to the last seven days, and keep the language field on the language you sell in.
X's developer documentation for search queries describes the same building blocks for the X API: quotes for an exact phrase, OR between alternatives, and a minus sign to exclude a word. That page covers the API, not the x.com search bar; X's help centre explains search through the advanced search form, so build your searches there. Bookmark the result pages of searches that keep returning real people. Our guide to finding people who describe the problem you solve has more ideas for which words to search.
Where else on X do your buyers gather?
Look at the accounts around your competitors and the people your buyers already follow. In a November 2020 Indie Hackers thread, Jay from Zylvie said they sent 20 to 30 DMs a day when launching Zlappo, that the first 10 customers came from those DMs, and listed four places to find people to message:
- followers of direct or adjacent competitors;
- accounts that influencers in the niche follow;
- accounts that publicly interact with those influencers;
- public X Lists, including the Lists an influencer belongs to.
That is one founder's report from 2020, and the volume is higher than we would start with. Two of these sources need care. X's authenticity policy, dated April 2025, lists copying another account's followers, particularly with automation, as engagement spam, along with following or unfollowing large numbers of unrelated accounts in a short time. Hand-pick from a competitor's followers; never copy the list wholesale.
Lists are the quiet win. X's Lists help page says a List can be set to private, so only you can see it, and a List timeline shows posts only from the accounts on it. Put your best-fit prospects on one private List, a few at a time, and read it daily: the same authenticity policy lists aggressively adding users to Lists as engagement spam. You will see when one of them posts the problem you solve.
What do you do when you find a potential customer?
Reply to the post first, with something useful and on topic, and only DM after they have answered. The same authenticity policy counts promotional replies that are irrelevant to the original post as content spam, along with bulk, aggressive or identical replies and DMs. A reply that answers their question is the opposite of that.
X also publishes hard limits on its limits page, checked 24 October 2026:
| Action | X's technical limit | Our daily routine below |
|---|---|---|
| Replies (unverified accounts) | 200 a day | 5 (2.5% of the cap) |
| Original posts (unverified accounts) | 50 a day | 0 to 1 |
| Direct Messages | 500 a day | 2 (0.4% of the cap) |
| Follows | 400 a day, plus rules against aggressive following | 5 |
The limits count actions from every device and app, including the API. They are technical ceilings, not targets. A useful reply looks like this:
For the DM itself, our guide on how to cold DM on Twitter covers who can receive your message and five DMs you can adapt. Our post on whether the reply-guy strategy still works covers replies as a growth habit. For more reply openers, see our X post and reply templates.
Does X Premium help a small account get noticed?
A little, in replies. X's Premium help page (updated 12 October 2026) says people on X will see a slight preference for replies from verified accounts over other replies, and that X is still testing how much it prioritises Premium subscribers in conversation rankings. Every Premium tier includes some reply prioritisation. The Basic tier costs $3 a month or $32 a year in the US on the web; the Premium tier, which adds the checkmark and larger reply prioritisation, costs $8 a month or $84 a year.
Our arithmetic: Basic billed yearly is $32 against $36 for twelve monthly payments. If replying is your main way to find customers, the boost lands on exactly the action you take most. It won't fix replies that don't help the person. Our breakdown of whether X Premium is worth it for a small account goes through the tiers.
What do founders who find customers on X report?
We read a March 2026 r/startups thread on using X search for leads, alongside the three Indie Hackers threads above. Four points stand out:
- Search for pain, not product. The thread's author says to search for the problem your product solves instead of your product, and keeps a list of about 30 such searches and checks them every morning.
- Speed matters. One commenter reports better engagement when replying within the first two hours of a post than 12 hours later.
- Keep the conversation human. One commenter says fully automated AI replies caused a big drop in conversion, and went back to replying by hand. Another automates only the finding.
- Comment before you DM. Two commenters say the same: add something useful in public first.
These are individual reports, not measured results. They fit X's own rules, which class bulk, identical and irrelevant replies as spam.
A 20-minute daily routine to find customers on X
Bookmark 10 searches
Two from each row of the search table above. Move each one's from date forward every week so it covers the last seven days.
Scan for new posts
Open each search and pick out people who fit: right role, real account, a problem you solve.
Reply to 5
Use the reply template. Answer the question in the post. Follow the person and add them to your private prospect List.
DM 2 who answered
Pick up the thread from your reply. Ask one question.
Over a five-day week that is 25 public replies and 10 DMs. Log each one in a sheet or CRM with the post that surfaced them.
When the searches start returning more people than you can reply to, Siela's AI SDR can take over the finding and the DMs. It tracks the keywords and competitors you choose on X, finds people by what their bio says, and sends up to 50 DMs a day from your own account while the desktop app is open. Each DM is written from the person's profile and the signal that surfaced them, and checked by a second AI reviewer before it is sent.
Frequently asked questions
Can you find customers on X without posting anything?
Yes. X's help page says advanced search is available to anyone logged in to x.com, so a new account can use it from day one. Search for posts describing the problem you solve, reply with something useful, and DM people who answer. Add a clear bio and a few posts on your topic first, so people who check your profile see what you do.
What search terms find buyers on X?
Phrases buyers use when they need help: "can anyone recommend" with your category, "alternative to" plus a competitor's name, "switching from" a competitor, and the pain itself in plain words. In X's advanced search, put these in the exact phrase field, add category words in the any-of-these-words field, exclude hiring and job posts, and limit dates to the last week.
Is it against X's rules to reply to strangers to find customers?
Not in itself. X's authenticity policy targets bulk, aggressive or high-volume unsolicited replies and DMs, identical messages, and promotional replies that are irrelevant to the original post. A relevant, one-to-one reply that answers someone's question is ordinary use. Pasting the same pitch under many posts is what the policy describes as spam.
How many replies can a new X account send a day?
X's limits page, checked 24 October 2026, gives 200 replies and 50 original posts a day for unverified accounts, and 500 Direct Messages a day for all accounts. These are technical limits that count actions from every device and app. X says it may lower them temporarily during heavy use. Prospecting volume should be a small fraction of them.
Should you use a private X List for prospects?
Yes, it is one of the simplest tools for it. X's help page says a List can be private, visible only to you, and that a List timeline shows posts only from accounts on that List. Add your best-fit prospects and check it daily, so you see when one of them posts about the problem you solve.
Sources
- Indie Hackers: Is Twitter the best way to get initial users for your SaaS? (24 Dec 2020; checked 24 Oct 2026)
- Indie Hackers: I spent 6 months building before realizing my X profile had 12 followers (31 May 2026; checked 24 Oct 2026)
- Indie Hackers: How to market and grow your SaaS on Twitter (examples given) (27 Nov 2020; checked 24 Oct 2026)
- r/startups: Twitter search is a goldmine for startup leads (21 Mar 2026; checked 24 Oct 2026)
- X Help Center: How to use advanced search (checked 24 Oct 2026)
- X Developer Platform: Build a query (search) (checked 24 Oct 2026)
- X Help Center: About X limits (checked 24 Oct 2026)
- X Help Center: Authenticity policy (April 2025; checked 24 Oct 2026)
- X Help Center: How to use X Lists (checked 24 Oct 2026)
- X Help Center: About X Premium (updated 12 Oct 2026; checked 24 Oct 2026)