How to Get Testimonials for Your Product When Nobody Knows You

You’ve launched. A handful of people are actually using your product. But your landing page is still empty where the testimonials should be — that awkward blank space that screams “nobody trusts this yet.”

Here’s the uncomfortable truth: those first testimonials are the hardest thing to get, and also the highest-leverage thing you can do for conversions. One study by Spiegel Research Center found that displaying reviews can increase conversion rates by up to 270%. For an indie product with no brand recognition, that gap between “zero social proof” and “some social proof” is even more dramatic.

The good news is that getting real, compelling testimonials is a skill you can learn. It comes down to three things: asking the right people, asking at the right moment, and asking in a way that makes it easy to say yes.

Why Testimonials Matter More for Indie Products

Big companies can lean on brand trust. When you buy from Salesforce or Shopify, the brand itself does some of the persuasion work. You don’t have that. Every skeptical visitor who lands on your page is asking the same question: “Is this person and their product actually legit?”

Testimonials answer that question in a way your own copy can’t. A stranger saying “this saved me 3 hours a week” is worth ten times more than you saying it in your headline. The voice changes everything.

But there’s a second reason testimonials matter specifically for indie products: they give you signal. When someone tells you what their life looked like before and after your product, they’re handing you your best marketing language. The exact words your customers use to describe the problem are the words your future customers are typing into Google. Testimonials aren’t just social proof — they’re market research you can repurpose.

One mistake founders make is waiting until the product feels “done” to start collecting feedback. Start asking for written responses from day one, even in beta. Rough testimonials from real users beat polished quotes you invented.

Who to Ask and When

The best testimonials come from people who have experienced a specific, concrete result. That means the timing of your ask matters as much as who you ask.

Ask immediately after the win. If a user hits a milestone — completes their first project, exports their first report, sends their first campaign — that’s your moment. Their memory of the pain before your product is fresh. Their excitement about the result is high. A message sent 10 minutes after their success lands completely differently than a follow-up email three weeks later.

Who specifically to ask in the early days:

• Beta users who gave you verbal praise. If someone said something positive in a chat message or on a call, that’s your easiest ask. Quote their own words back: “You mentioned this cut your workflow in half — would you be willing to put that in a short written testimonial?”
• Power users. Identify the 10-20% who use your product most frequently. They have the most concrete experience and the most invested interest in the product succeeding.
• Users who complained, then stayed. Someone who hit a problem, you fixed it, and they stuck around — that’s a story. “They actually listened and fixed it” is a powerful testimonial arc.
• Personal network who genuinely use it. Friends and colleagues only count if they’re in your actual target market and use the product for real. A testimonial from your cousin about a B2B invoicing tool is transparent and hurts more than it helps.

Aim for 5-7 solid testimonials before you consider your landing page “credible.” Three strong ones from real users beat fifteen vague ones.

When you’re figuring out how to convert those early users from free to paid, testimonials from your free tier users become especially useful — they can speak directly to the value you deliver before someone pays a cent.

How to Ask in a Way That Gets Great Responses

Most testimonial requests fail because they’re too open-ended. “Would you be willing to write a testimonial?” puts all the work on the person you’re asking. They freeze, they procrastinate, and eventually they forget.

Make it trivially easy. The best approach is a three-question email or message:

1. What was your situation before you found [product]?
2. What changed after you started using it?
3. What would you tell someone who’s on the fence about trying it?

These three questions reliably produce testimonials that have a before/after structure, which converts far better than generic praise. “Great product, highly recommend” is forgettable. “I was spending 4 hours a week on X. Now it takes 20 minutes and I have my Friday afternoons back” is specific and memorable.

Give them an out. Add a line like: “If you’d rather just hop on a 5-minute call and I’ll write it up for you to approve, that works too.” Some people hate writing but will happily talk.

Follow up once. Wait five business days after your first ask, then send one reminder. Keep it short: “Hey — no pressure at all, just bumping this in case it got buried.” Don’t ask again after that. The relationship is worth more than the testimonial.

When you get a response, edit it with permission. Most people’s first draft is longer than you need and buries the best line. Ask: “Would it be okay if I trimmed this to focus on [the specific result they mentioned]? I’ll send it to you to approve before I use it anywhere.” Nobody says no to this.

Using Testimonials Across Your Marketing

A good testimonial shouldn’t live in just one place. Here’s how to get maximum leverage from each one you collect.

On your landing page: Place testimonials closest to the decision they reduce friction for. A testimonial about ease of setup goes near your “get started” CTA. A testimonial about ROI goes near your pricing section. Don’t just stack them all at the bottom.

In cold outreach: Quoting a testimonial in a cold email shifts the message from “I’m telling you this is good” to “someone like you found this valuable.” Keep it short — one sentence, attributed to a real person with their role and company if possible.

In onboarding emails: New users who haven’t fully activated yet need reassurance. A well-placed testimonial in your day-3 onboarding email from someone who faced the same hesitation can push them to give the product a real try.

On social proof walls: If you write about your product publicly, screenshots of testimonials (with permission) perform well. Real words from real people in their natural format feel more authentic than a designed quote card.

One thing the Struggling Entrepreneur newsletter has covered is that the founders who grow fastest aren’t necessarily the ones with the best product — they’re the ones who build trust fastest. Testimonials are the fastest trust shortcut you have.

If you’re still working on your core landing page copy, check out how to write a SaaS landing page that actually converts — the principles there will help you know exactly where each testimonial belongs.

The testimonials you collect in the first 90 days of your product’s life will likely be the ones you use for the next two years. Start asking this week. One real, specific testimonial from one real user is worth more than everything you’ve written about your own product combined.