When we started tinder we had the same problem. The silver lining of this is each new user has a sort of exponential effect. The founders were fanatical about the product and went on a guerilla marketing campaign. They focused on college campuses first. In hindsight or from the outside it seems like a no brainer but it was critical. The user experience was compelling. It offered clear and immediate value. A few campus parties and next thing you know the whole campus was hooked.
Anyways, the marketing evolved quite a bit. But the key fact remained that the platform gave something to people. So I imagine you find yourself in this mental loop of “user experience will suffer without users and they’ll log off”. I think if your product is compelling, your users will come back. Period. So focus on user acquisition at a micro scale and continue marching forward to you next target.
I don’t have any advice or answers, just wanted to commiserate.
I’m a damn good engineer who had a few really good runs. I worked my butt off building peoples ideas into profitable realities. Literally dedicated my lift to building the modern internet. Along the way has been greed and shaky overly leveraged startups. Getting let go before stupid long vesting cliffs. Being promised option grants that never materialize. You name it, it’s happened.
So in a push to find stability and catch my breath I go to work for big stable tech companies where I’m a good worker. And now the minute the economy becomes inhospitable to these “businessmen” we all get laid off again.
I’d love to work somewhere run by people who are financially conservative. People who value slow steady long term growth over debt and spending.
Good luck to you my friend. It’s rough right now.