I thought it'd be interesting to know what does your product do and how long did it take you to get your first customer? This can be for either side projects or startups.<p>Ideally you'd give the total amount of time you spent developing until you got your first payment from someone.
If you build for yourself, you'll have a first customer right away.<p>But, on a less trite note, it's highly variable. For my most recent project (sci.chat), it took me a total of three weeks from starting to get my first customer. They came through a reddit post. For other projects I've made, I've gotten zero customers after months of effort. In my experience, relying on organic growth instead of "going viral" attempts has worked out a lot better.