How to Get Testimonials for a New Business With No Customers

To get testimonials for a new business with no customers, you do not invent proof, you borrow it and then earn it fast. Legitimate substitutes exist: beta users and pilot clients, a small discounted first cohort who agree in advance to give honest feedback, references from former employers and colleagues about your actual work, credentials, guarantees, and a documented process a stranger can evaluate. Then you convert your first three paying clients into real, attributed testimonials by asking at the right moment. That is the whole path out of the chicken and egg problem, and it usually takes weeks, not months.

The trap is the shortcut most new founders reach for: writing a few glowing quotes themselves, or pasting a stock photo next to a made-up name. It is obvious to buyers and illegal in the US. More on that below, because the rules changed recently and a lot of small-business advice online predates them.

How do you get testimonials when you have no clients?

You use proof substitutes: pilot users, beta testers, a first cohort served at a reduced rate in exchange for honest feedback, colleagues and former managers who can speak to your work, and process transparency. None of these are customer testimonials, and you should not label them as such. Each one answers a different piece of the buyer's doubt, and stacked together they get you to the first sale.

The useful reframe: a buyer looking at a brand-new business is not asking "are you popular?" They are asking "will you deliver, and what happens to me if you don't?" Popularity answers that, but it is the slowest answer to manufacture. Risk reversal, evidence of competence, and a named human standing behind the work answer it too.

What can you use instead of customer testimonials?

Here is the honest inventory, including what each substitute cannot do. Do not stretch any of them past their actual weight.

Two of these deserve more detail because they are consistently underused.

Testimonials from previous employers and colleagues

If you spent eight years doing this work at someone else's company, that experience did not evaporate when you registered an LLC. Ask three former managers or colleagues for a short statement: what you did, how you handled a hard moment, whether they would work with you again. Label it accurately ("What people who have worked with me say," not "Customer reviews"). It is specific, and usually more persuasive than a generic five-star line.

The case study of one

Your first completed project is worth more written up than quoted. Situation, what you did, what happened, what it cost, with the client's permission and a quote from them at the end. One thorough case study beats six vague testimonials, because it shows your method rather than asserting your quality. It also gives you something to attach to a proposal.

How do I get my first testimonials?

Recruit a small first cohort, three to ten people, and be explicit about the trade. You are offering the work free or at a clearly reduced rate, and in exchange you are asking for two things: honest feedback during the engagement, and a testimonial at the end if (and only if) they are genuinely happy. Say the "if" part out loud. A conditional ask is what keeps this legal and what makes the resulting quotes worth reading.

Where to find them: your existing network, the online communities where your buyers already talk, local business groups, and direct outreach to people whose problem you can name precisely. Pick people who look like the customers you want, not whoever says yes fastest.

Do not run this cohort forever. Two to three months, then you charge. Free work is a bootstrapping tool, and a page full of quotes from people who never paid you reads exactly like what it is.

When should you ask for your first testimonial?

Ask at the moment the result lands, not at the end of the invoice cycle. For a service, that is the meeting where the client sees the deliverable and reacts. For a product, it is the first week after the customer got the outcome they bought it for. The window is roughly 48 hours wide, and it closes.

The second-best trigger is unsolicited praise. When a client sends "this is exactly what we needed," reply the same day: thank them, then ask if they would put a version of that on the record. They already wrote it. You are asking permission, not asking for effort. Our full breakdown of how to ask for a testimonial covers the exact wording and follow-up cadence.

Make the ask one click. Send a single link that lets the person type an answer or record a short video in the browser with no account to create, no app to install, and consent captured at submission. Every extra step costs you responses, and with three clients you cannot afford to lose one. That is exactly what our testimonial collection tool does, and guided prompts ("what was the problem before?", "what changed?") produce specific quotes instead of "great to work with."

How do you get reviews for a new business?

Reviews and testimonials are different assets and need different plays. Reviews live on platforms you do not control (Google Business Profile, Yelp, industry directories) and carry weight precisely because you cannot edit them. Testimonials live on your site and let you choose the story. A new business needs both: claim and fill out your Google Business Profile on day one, and ask satisfied customers to review you there, without offering anything in exchange, because most platforms prohibit incentivized reviews outright and will remove or penalize them.

Keep the two asks separate. Send the platform review request to customers who already told you they are happy, and use your own collection link for the longer, quotable testimonials you publish. Both go on your site: reviews as a rating and a link, testimonials as a wall of love that grows as you collect. If you are still standing up the site itself, get a page live that can hold this proof (an AI tool that builds your whole website end to end will get you there in an afternoon), because proof sitting in your inbox persuades nobody.

Is it legal to give someone a discount for a testimonial?

Generally yes, if you disclose it and you do not condition it on the review being positive. This is general information and not legal advice, so talk to a lawyer about your specific situation. Two US rules matter. The FTC Endorsement Guides (16 CFR Part 255) require that a material connection between you and an endorser, meaning anything of value such as free product, a discount, or a payment, be disclosed clearly and conspicuously wherever the testimonial appears. The FTC's Rule on the Use of Consumer Reviews and Testimonials (16 CFR Part 465), effective October 21, 2024, goes further: it prohibits fake or false reviews and testimonials, including ones from people who do not exist or who never actually used your product or service, prohibits buying or selling them, prohibits undisclosed insider reviews from officers, managers, and employees, prohibits offering compensation conditioned on a review expressing a particular sentiment, and prohibits certain review suppression tactics. Courts can impose civil penalties for knowing violations, and in December 2025 the FTC sent warning letters to companies over possible violations of the rule.

The practical version for a new business: never write a testimonial and attribute it to someone else. Never use a stock photo as a customer. Do not have your cofounder, your employees, or your mom post reviews without disclosing the relationship. If you gave someone free or discounted work, say so next to their quote ("received a free pilot in exchange for honest feedback"). Ask for an honest testimonial, not a good one. Get written consent to publish, including the name, photo, and any video. Done this way, incentives are fine and the disclosure costs you almost nothing in credibility. Buyers already assume some testimonials are incentivized; the ones that say so read as more honest, not less.

How much proof do you actually need to start selling?

Less than you think, and it needs to be specific rather than plentiful. Three detailed, attributed testimonials from people who look like your target customer outperform twenty anonymous one-liners. Put them where the doubt occurs (next to the price, next to the "how it works" section, on the booking page) rather than quarantined on a testimonials tab. The mechanics of why this works are covered in our explainer on what social proof is, and the ongoing collection system for service businesses is on our client testimonials page.

The cold-start problem ends the first time you finish real work for a real person and ask them, on the day it lands, to say so on the record. Build the asking habit now while you have three clients, and by client thirty you will have a wall of proof that competitors cannot copy. Start collecting testimonials and send your first request link this week.