Growth · 4 min read
Your first 100 orders — how to handle them without burning out
Orders 1-20 feel exciting. Orders 20-100 are where most solo merchants burn out. Here's the discipline:
Do it on numu, step by step
Automate confirmations + tracking pings via WhatsApp from day one. If you're typing "Hi your order is on the way" by hand, you'll stop after 30 orders.
Batch pickups. Hand parcels to the courier once a day, not on demand — numu's pickup manifest lists the day's parcels in one sheet. A pickup every 2 hours is a productivity killer.
Save support macros. For the 5 questions every customer asks ("when does it arrive?", "can I exchange?", "do you ship to X?"), pre-write the answers in Arabic and English. Paste, don't retype.
Audit weekly, not daily. Daily revenue feels exciting but trends only show up over 7+ day windows. Skip the daily dopamine.
Talk to your first 20 customers personally. After that, scale with automation. The first 20 teach you what to automate.