What was the actual source of your first ten paying customers?

When I launched my first tool, I expected launch day traffic to convert into real revenue. In reality I got tons of traffic and nice compliments but zero sales from the main launch itself.

All my actual early paying users came from sending cold messages on X to people who were actively struggling with the problem plus a few referrals from niche Slack communities.

If you had to redo your first month where would you actually focus your time to land those initial buyers?