How do you decide which tactic to pursue? 

To make your decision even easier, here’s what I’ve found to be the three common archetypes of early startup growth: Typical path to first 1,000 users for consumer startups: 

1. Reach out to friends and colleagues (e.g. email them, post on social media, call them)

2. Go where your target audience hangs out, online or offline (e.g. forums, Product Hunt, college campuses, Craigslist, etc.)

3. Enlist influencers

If you’re a marketplace or platform (e.g. DoorDash, Cameo, Substack): 

1. Reach out to targeted strangers (e.g. DM celebs, email owners)

2. Get physical placement (e.g. stickers, flyers)

3. Enable your supply to drive your demand

If you have a remarkable story to tell (e.g. Airbnb, Spotify, Superhuman): 

1. Get press

2. Try to create viral content

Below I’ll share dozens of stories from founders pursuing each of these tactics, but broadly, here’s a summary of which tactics were most impactful for all of the largest consumer tech companies.

The core insight of Figma is that design is larger than just designers. Design is all of the conversations between designers and PMs about what to build. It is the mocks and prototypes and the feedback on them. It is the handoff of specs and assets to engineers and how easy it is for them to implement them. Building for this entire process doesn’t take away the importance of designers—it gives them a seat at the table for the core decisions a company makes.

Building for everyone in the design process and not just designers is also the foundation of Figma’s core loop, which drives their growth and compounding scale. That network effect is made possible by Figma’s key early choices like:

Architecting Figma to be truly browser-first, instead of just having storage be in the cloud

Their head start in new technologies like WebGL and CRDTs that made this browser-first approach possible

Focusing on a product purpose built for those designing vector based digital products

Figma’s compounding growth is not only due to product market fit, but is also driven by the alignment between their product and distribution. There are limits to Figma’s success if it remains only valued and spread within companies. In order to break through that asymptote, Figma must build a global network effect across the ecosystem. Figma’s value to new users should compound as Figma’s adoption grows, even for solo users outside of organizations. Figma has begun making its bets on how it will become a platform—namely centered around communities and plugins. While it’s still early, these bets can be unpacked and understood.

Could you talk about getting your first 10, 100, 1000 users?

And also making your first $100, $1000, $10000 in revenue?

—

Sure, so the first 10-100 definitely came from Twitter. I'd been involved in a relatively similar space prior to launching Carrd (site template/theme design) so the followers I'd gained from that translated pretty well to Carrd. First 1000 (and then some) came from launching on Product Hunt and ... yeah, that was interesting :) Gave me a real taste of some of the scale issues I'd face months later.

With respect to impactful actions, I guess there were three:

Making sure onboarding had as little friction as possible (which culminated in the signup-free flow you see at http://carrd.co/build). This really helped when Carrd launched on Product Hunt.

Going with free + paid upgrades. Not always an option, but I think this gives you a longer timeline during which you can "win" over users with a value-add they'll want to pay for (as opposed to a limited trial which is, well, limited).

Just being ... chill I guess? I've used products that come on way too strong in the user acquisition and especially retention departments (which was a major turnoff) so I figured not doing that would be the right way to go. So far I think I've been proven right.

Many big companies of today were ruthless in their early days when they were looking to grow themselves.

It was absolutely necessary for them to do it so they could win but you'll never find them admitting to breaking bad.

Sometimes these companies went on the other sides of the law while sometimes they deceived their users by empoying shady manipulative tactics.

At the end of the day, all businesses are dependent on finding ways to manipulate human behaviour or psychology as they say.

So you gotta choose if you want to be grow ethically to get decent ROI or you want to game the system to get rich.

This is a non-exhaustive list of companies that grew unethically.

Stop telling yourself you’re not good at writing funny copy.

Why?

Well, that innocent-seeming lie is preventing you from even trying to be funny. You’re all, “No one ever laughs at my jokes, so I’ll just keep these thoughts to myself.”

(Kinda like when you tell yourself, “I couldn’t possibly make a deliciously moist gluten-free, dairy-free cookie” so you forgo the cookies altogether.)

The thing is…funny copy is more about being amusing than being a one-person laugh track.

Plus, what’s funny to me isn’t always funny to you. 

If you’ve ever watched any sitcom or a standup show on Netflix, you’ve probably had that weird experience where the audience is cackling their asses off and you’re sitting there on the couch mentally making a list of all the reasons that wasn’t funny.

Listen, you don’t have to be a trained, studied, storied comedian with a mental Blackberry of jokes to make someone laugh. 

You just have to give it a go. See what lands and what’s met with silence and dry coughs.

Oh. And employ one or two of the tricks we’re gonna talk about that will help you easily write funny copy. winks

Initial Post Performance

Upon clicking “Publish” on a LinkedIn post, the content isn’t broadcasted to a random audience. The LinkedIn algorithm employs a distinct method to evaluate its efficacy and prospective dissemination.

During the initial 60-90 minutes post-publication, LinkedIn scrutinizes your newly shared post among the core members of your network, roughly equivalent to 7% of your entire followers. These individuals are those who consistently engage with and appreciate your most outstanding content.

If this central group of users positively engages with your content, the algorithm broadens its reach. Conversely, if they display a lack of interest, the content’s visibility diminishes.