How can a new content platform gain its first 100 passionate users without advertising spend?

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Accepted Answer

Hi,

I wouldn’t start with a “platform.” That’s building something for the future that you don't yet know will work.

I’d start with a tiny, underserved audience whose taste is visible, unusual and tribal: say, noir horror fans in Buenos Aires, women’s soccer obsessives, or founders watching brutally honest startup postmortems.

Then I’d hand-curate 20 things they can’t easily find anywhere else, add one social ritual — weekly watch party, live teardown, creator Q&A — and recruit users one by one from the communities where they already gather.

The unfair strategy is not try to beat Netflix’s algorithm or the size of it's catalogue. Beat its inability to focus down that small. They probbly aren't interested in anything that cant attract at least 10,000 viewers - but to a small company that would be a huge success..

So I would make the first 100 feel seen, useful, and slightly like insiders. Then let them help build the catalog by letting me what they want and where I can find it..

What's that unsexy niche for Giraffe TV? Let's start there.