Satispay
Satispay officially launched in 2014, but the first months had been preceded by a very specific experiment: convincing a small number of merchants in a defined geographic area to accept payments by app.
The area chosen was the Brera neighbourhood of Milan. Not because Brera was the largest or most representative market — but because it was the neighbourhood where some investors lived and where the founders regularly ate. They already knew the barista, the sushi restaurant, the bookshop.
The first 10 merchants were almost all acquired in person, with a 5-minute pitch: "Try for a month, it's free for you. If any of your customers ask to pay with Satispay, here's how it works." No annual contract, no activation cost, no risk.
The reason this worked was not the pitch — it was density. When 5-6 merchants within 200 square metres accepted Satispay, every customer using it with one automatically discovered it with others. The first viral loop was geographic before it was digital.
The lesson: the first 10 customers do not need to be representative of the total market. They need to be close enough to create density, familiar enough to trust you, and satisfied enough to become active referrals.
The first 10 customers are chosen for density and accessibility, not representativeness. Their function is to create the first loop, not to validate the total market.