While these remain impressive milestones today, it’s never been harder to corral eyeballs and hit a breakout adoption trajectory. In this new decade, it is possible to first out-market your competitor, raise lots of money, hire the best team, and build, rather than the other way around (making first, then marketing).
Outbound marketing tools and company newsletters are helpful, but they’re also a slow burn and offer low conversion in the new creator economy. So, where does this leave us?
With audiences spread out over so many platforms, reaching cult status requires some level of hacking. Brand-building is no longer a one-hit game but an exercise in repetition: It may take four or five times for a user to see your startup’s name or logo to recognize, remember, or Google it. Below are some growth tactics I hope will help build an engaged user base.
Laying the groundwork for user-generated content
Before users are evangelists, they are observers. Consider creating a bot to alert you of any product mentions on Twitter or surface subject-matter discussions on Reddit (“Best tools to manage AWS costs?” or “Which marketplace do you resell your old electronics on?”), which you can then respond to with thoughtful commentary.
Join relevant communities on Discord, infiltrate Slack groups of relevant conferences (including past iterations of a meeting — chances are those groups are still alive with activity), follow forums on StackOverflow, and engage in discussions on all these channels.
The more often you post, the better your posts convert. The more your handle appears on newsfeeds, the more likely it will be included in widely quoted “listicles.”
You should generate most “user-generated content” in the early innings from personal and company accounts.
Build-in public …
Building in public is scary, given how ideas can be copied, but competition will always exist since new ideas are not born in vacuums. Companies like Railway and Replit post to Twitter whenever they post a new changelog. Stir brands its feature releases as “drops,” similar to streetwear drops.
Building in public can also lend opportunities for virality, which requires drama, comedy, or both. Hey.com’s launch was buoyed by Basecamp’s public fight against Apple over existing App Store take rates.
Mmhmm, the virtual camera app that adds TV-presenter flair to video meetings launched with a viral video that hit over 1.5 million views. The company continues to release entertaining YouTube demos to showcase new use cases.
Like an artist teasing an upcoming album, some companies can drum up substantial anticipation ahead of exiting stealth mode. When two ex-Apple execs founded Humane, they crafted beautiful social media pages full of sophisticated photography without revealing a single hint of what they set out to build.
