Building a social discovery platform but for it to be anyway useful , we will need volume of folks to be on the platform trying to interact at one time. It might be easy problem to solve for companies like fb,reddit, Insta etc but how should a startup solve it?
Read a summary of The Cold Start Problem.
Make the product useful from the start, even for a single user, or focus on a specialized niche of users.
Social discovery platforms rely on heavy network effects. See if you can find examples of startups that have succeeded in this space. You’ll find very few.
I love a good book recommendation, especially in this community! Imma add this to my list.
I would recommend a tactic most marketing agencies use to get their initial batch of Email addresses for email marketing. They essentially offer a Free e-product (PDF, template) or a product give away. Take your niche, create a PDF book, bundle of instructions sheet, online course or Template outline, then offer it for free to the first 150 (Scarcity, you don’t have to limit it to 150) users that use the app.
For example: If your app helps fitness trainers get clients by providing free workouts with an upsell to a 1 on 1 Training with Trainers.
You can create a PDF bundle of 10 templates that can be used to track progress at them gym, and maintain a caloric deficit. I know a fitness trainer that would gladly give me all their templates, and let me give it away for free. You would advertise the price that the customer pays if they would go through a fitness trainer: $40/hr * 2 hr/week * 4 weeks a month = $320. Then offer set your offer as
“Free 4 Step plan to abs in 6 months fitness guide! $320 Bundle used by Top Rated Trainers for Free on our paired Fitness App!”
This above example may not work for you, but you’d quickly get a bunch of people who’ve been quoted $400+ by other trainers on the app.
Facebook did this by starting out as a hyper local network, only for 1 school, so the needed critical mass was small, and it was super relevant for the people who it was advertised to.
This book is really great! Thank you for sharing!