How to 10x Your User Acquisition - For Free
All hyper-growth companies build this. And you can do it too. For free.
Ever wondered if there’s a way to make your user acquisition 10x more effective without spending more money?
Probably yes, because budget is limited, pressure is on and you want to finally get your acquisition running.
I was in the same spot a few years ago working at a small startup. We tried ads, outbound, content. Nothing moved the needle the way we needed it to.
Then I looked at the hyper-growth companies. The ones going from 0 to 100M ARR in record time.
And there’s one mechanic that works for almost any business (yes, also for solo builders) and it can create a constant stream of new users. For free.
Here’s what they’re doing.
Building referral loops
Referral loops are how today’s top companies generate customers on autopilot.
The core principle is that one customer brings 10 more and there are just some simple mechanics you can implement for your business.
To make it clear, let’s have a look at some examples.
Lovable’s Referral Loop
Lovable’s referral loop looks like this:
A new user is using the tool, he builds something, shares what he built, others see it, go to Lovable’s website and start building.
To fuel this loop Lovable has some simple mechanics in place:
Once a user builds an app he is greeted with a pop-up and the call to action to share his app.
In the second step: User shares his app on social media or his app appears in Lovable’s app library.
Once someone clicks on his app, there is a button in the bottom right corner.
One click on it and you land on Lovable’s website where you can directly start building.
Boom. Loop closed, users generated on autopilot.
But this doesn’t only work for end users.
Clay uses a completely different loop, targeting partners but at least with the same effects (if not more effective).
Clay’s Referral Loop
Clay is another rapid-growth company reaching $100M ARR in 2025.
And their loop is one major pillar to reach this revenue milestone.
Clay’s loop addresses agencies and works like this:
Agencies use Clay to run cold outreach campaigns with extreme personalization for their clients.
The clients are so impressed by the results (high response rates) that they ask: “How do you do that?”
The agency shows them Clay. The client realizes they need to buy the software themselves to maintain this standard in their team.
People are talking about it online and sharing it with the community, which attracts new agencies.
This again creates this permanent stream of new customers.
There are even agencies that build their entire business model around Clay. Those are called Clagencies.
How to build one yourself
So coming to the key question. How do you build a loop yourself?
There are two main questions you should ask yourself upfront:
Does my product have the nature that people are willing to share?
Or can I enable others (e.g. partners) to share my product?
If you answer these questions you probably have an idea in which direction you can build your loop.
Let’s say as an example we have a social media scheduler as a product. Here clearly people are willing to share but there is probably no way where you can put your brand name in (nobody wants a “posted with XYZ” underneath their post haha).
So we go for partners. Bringing agencies or freelancers to use the product. The loop could look like this:
The freelancer plans the posts for their client in our tool.
They send the client a “Review-Link” for approval.
The client sees the post in the interface of our tool (without login required).
When the client later has their own project or the team changes, they remember the tool (”What was that cool approval tool?”) and become a paying user themselves.
Or another example.
Our tool tracks investment activities and since people naturally love to brag on the internet we focus on creating nice sharable dashboards or screenshots.
Here comes the loop into play:
People use our tool
People share their overview from our app (screenshot or we create a preview link where they can share it directly) on social media
Other users see it and are naturally guided to our website
New users start using our tool
Loop repeats.
With this simple mechanic you can acquire customers on a budget without spending thousands on ads or spamming outbound mails.
Final Words
When we implemented a basic referral loop in that startup I mentioned, we went from struggling to hit our monthly targets to having users bring in 3-4 new signups each week.
That’s when I realized that the best growth engine isn’t something you buy. It’s something you build into your product from day one - for free.
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