Build an audience first, or launch and grow later?
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This is probably one of the most debated topics in the startup world: Should you build an audience before you launch, or is it better to launch first and grow your audience afterward?
I’ve seen both approaches work, but each comes with its own set of challenges and rewards.
- Building an audience first means you're creating buzz, validating your idea, and nurturing a community of early adopters who are invested in your success. But it takes time, patience, and a lot of effort to keep the momentum going before you even have a product to show.
- Launching first lets you hit the ground running, gather real-world feedback, and iterate quickly. But without an existing audience, you might struggle to get those initial users and traction.
So, indulge me: Which approach did you take —or are you considering taking (those who haven't launched yet)?
- Did you build an audience before launching your product, or did you launch and then focus on growth?
- What worked (or didn't work) for you?
- If you could go back, would you do it differently?
Share your story with us so we can all learn from each other. There's someone here who could benefit from your experience.
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P.S: If you're a growth-stage founder struggling with churn or stagnant customer acquisition (usually because of poor positioning and messaging), I'd love to help.
I specialize in crafting impactful marketing strategies tailored specifically to your product so you can start seeing the results you deserve.
Connect with me on LinkedIn today. Can't wait to hear from you!
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Replies
I tried both. From my experiences, I prefer building an audience first, as this speeds up the launching & testing phase.
Sadly, being a maker is not something I can do for a lot of time on a daily basis, and building an audience requires a lot of resources (energy, time). But I noticed that for PostGod, the little audience building we did prior to the launch helped us a lot.
We launched CoreSight (second launch March 24!) with zero marketing spend and hit 1,000+ users purely through Product Hunt and Reddit. No audience built beforehand.
The honest answer is it worked, but it was slower and messier than it needed to be. Every early user taught us something we should have known before shipping. An audience would have given us that feedback without the guesswork.
If we were starting over, we'd probably do both in parallel. Ship early, but build the community at the same time rather than treating them as sequential steps.