Hi Comm, I’m a solo-founder bootstrapping on an early-intervention wellbeing product, initially focusing on lawyer wellbeing as a B2C.
Most of the resources I’ve either read or listened to over the years emphasised avoiding paid ads as a way to awareness and customer acquisition, but to instead focus on organic and community-led engagement and building.
Problem I personally have is almost all resources, books and guidance on how to build this community tends to be via online channels; social media. Truth is I don’t engage with social media, and haven’t had many accounts like instagram. I left them all because of my own mental wellbeing (ironic, really). I find the idea of shouting into the void of Twitter off-putting (especially since Musk took over), and generally dislike social media in general.
I tried to engage with said community via Reddit, but it’s sun is hideously toxic (to my own surprise). LinkedIn is probably the only platform I use and I don’t mind it, but both cautious about being vocal (as this is a side project from my own role) and over the years, it feels like LinkedIn has been borked in a way that inhibits it’s organic outreach (like the decline of LinkedIn Groups over the years).
Would like to know how many others dealt with this, particularly if you’re trying to reach out to a community that you’re not in and generally isn’t overly tech-savvy as a whole, or if you ever had any success launching with paid ads.
YC recommend to start with things that don’t scale, like to your customers directly if possible. I also have problems while dealing with social media, I feel more comfortable talking through my brand channel instead of my private accounts. You can build channels that talk and post about the pain the your customer suffers from it, like blogs use to be in the past. If health is you area, build a community sharing tips or information about the subject they might be interested in. The other way is to hire someone or get a cofounder to take care of it while you build the product.