You do not need a following. You need to find the group that already exists, and get in front of it through somebody they already trust.

That is my own strategy, said plainly: attach myself to the trust and reputation another group already has, so that when people hear about the thing, they already trust it. Building an audience from zero is the slow way, and it is not the only way.

Start with the people you already interviewed

If you did the research properly, you have five to seven people who told you about their problem in detail. Those people are your first testers. They are invested, they shared with you, and they want to see what you came up with. Offer them the beta before you offer it to anyone.

This is the cheapest reason to do research before building, and almost nobody counts it.

Go where the group already gathers

Every niche already has a room. It might be a subreddit, a Discord, a Slack, a professional association, a conference, or, on Vancouver Island, a Facebook group, because this island runs on Facebook and it drives me crazy. You could build an entire business by helping people in one group.

The rule for being in that room: be useful first, and do not treat it as a place to post links. You are looking for the people with the problem, and the fastest way to find them is to answer questions about the problem.

Borrow trust rather than building it

The version that works for a small operator is simple: find someone who already has the audience you want, and give them a reason to introduce you. An email list, a community leader, a meetup organiser, a podcast, a course, a conference. What you offer is something useful to their people, free.

This is the same move for engineers with an open project: put it in front of a technical community, earn the respect of engineers, and the recommendations travel. Just know who in that room has buying power and who does not.

The compounding version, which is the one I am playing for, is that the people you help early become the people who recommend you in three or four years when they have staff of their own.

Collect the people who show interest, from day one

• A waitlist page before you build. Standard practice in business for a long time, and it works fine for apps. It also makes you look more legit while you are still talking to people.
• A sign-up at the end of anything you make. At the end, not the start. At the start people are trying to get in; at the end you can say: leave your email if you would be interested in helping shape this by sharing your experience.
• A prompt inside the product later. A small note saying you are thinking about expanding this and would love to talk to people who use it a lot.
• The disappointment test. Mention the thing, mention that it is not available yet, and see who is most disappointed. That is your list.

The peripheral group you have not thought about

Once you know who your core person is, there is usually a group next door who has the same problem for a different reason. You often do not even have to change the message for them. You just have to put it where they are.

What not to do first

Do not buy ads before the product works. It is a waste of money: you can pay for a hundred signups and discover that nobody gets through onboarding, which you could have found out for free. When you do run ads, run several, because one bad ad tells you nothing about your product.

And do not pin your launch on a single moment. Something small and self-contained can go on Product Hunt and be a fun day, but treat it as one door, not the door.

Watch what happens next

Put analytics in early enough that you can see where people drop off, and then message the ones who stopped. You recruited them yourself, so you can say: I noticed you stopped using it, that is completely fine, would you tell me why? That question has more product value than any launch.

Keep reading

Build It and They Will Come Is a Lie: What Actually Works in 2026

How to Define Your Target Market When You Have an App Idea

I Launched My App and Got Zero Downloads: What Actually Went Wrong?

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