Sharath grew from 200 to 20K Twitter followers by recruiting early believers, cold-DMing influencers for feedback, and building in public before launch. He frames soft launches as learning experiments, not traction hunts, and says consistent sharing compounds into organic growth.
Chapters
Hey everybody, this is Sharath, and today I'm going to talk about the most frequently asked question I get on Twitter, through my DMs, and whenever I get on a call with makers one-on-one. They all ask me this question, which is how to soft launch a product on Twitter with no following. I have to admit this, it's not easy. It's not like, you know, you launch and you get like a lot of traction, a lot of audience, a lot of customers. A lot of signups and whatnot. But I would say it's not the most difficult part. You know, you have to like, it actually works when you launch multiple things. That's what I did. The first project is always like, you know, it's tough, but don't launch it for traction. Like, you know, launch it to get better at many other things like how to launch, how to talk to customers, how to gather feedback and so on and so forth. But today I think I'll explain my story. Like when I launched my first project, I had 200 followers and the project was Tools for Makers. And I had like no clue. This is my first time building something from scratch. And as a non-technical maker with no following, it was like literally shooting in the blind. But I did launch because not to get more users per se or signups, or gather emails, but I just want to like, you know, taste the experience of building something, like taking an idea from 0 to 1 and putting it out in the market. So yeah, when I launched, you know, I had like literally 200 followers. And the thing I did was I found, I actually formed like a group of friends who are early believers in me personally. They are very active on Twitter, but even they have like less followers. So, but the thing you have to do is, you know, find these early believers who believe in you personally as a maker, as a founder, or who believe in the idea. They can be, they don't know you, you don't know them, but they actually resonate with the idea you're building. Fortunately, when I kind of initially said, I have an idea. It's about gathering the curation of tools for makers since I'm a maker and whatnot. There is a lot of people like me who resonated with the idea and they supported like even before I soft launched on Twitter. So the thing is you have to like find these friends who genuinely support you, seek their social capital and start like interacting with them on a daily basis before you launch on Twitter. The other popular thing which a lot of people know, which actually worked for me, is basically cold outreach, which is, you know, you basically DM a bunch of influencers who you look up to or who are very prolific on Twitter who can resonate with the idea you're building, with the market you're building and whatnot. They might not necessarily like, you know, They have massive following, but they have to like kind of very active on Twitter. So definitely talk to them in cold outreach, like cold DM them and provide value and literally say, hey, you know, I'm new to this, blah, blah, blah. I have like less following, but I would love to gather some feedback from you. Don't generally ask, place your ask. It's more about, you know, again, The signal you have to show here is to basically say, hey, I'm actually new to this game and I want to become better at the game. 99%, trust me, 99% of people reply back and they support. That's exactly what happened to me. A lot of people supported me. A lot of prolific people on Twitter, they literally came forward and say, hey, check this new maker. He's launching a new thing and whatnot. Usually that's social proof for you. If a big name is actually kind of endorsing you, that's kind of like, you know, you have to bank on that. That brings a lot more people in for your product to try it out or test it out. I think the last, this is like the underrated thing, which a lot of folks know, but they don't follow, which is build in public. You know, that's like the best way to promote your product. on the internet. And you have to start building in public before you start even building the product, you know. So start like talking about the idea. That's what I did. Like I talked about the idea first, introduced, this is what I'm doing, share some few screenshots or prototypes and whatnot. Like, you know, the designs I'm working on and logo or things like that nature. Or I had a new name, I bought a domain. Basically, you show the progress day to day and people recognize that. And, you know, you may— it may seem like, you know, they don't see it, but they actually see it. They actually like follow your journey. And once you provide these updates, progress, and as long as you're providing value for them in terms of like, hey, I found this new way to buy an internet buy a website domain, check this new tool. That's like value for certain folks, right? And I found like a new way to, I don't know, like, you know, find a new way to like do a Twitter OAuth, for example, right? That's value for them. So once you start building that value for them, they usually support you because you're— they want you to win. because you actually like gave a lot of value for them, right? So that's what I would do, like build in public aggressively, share your highs, lows. And I think I want to end this video with one philosophical thought, which is like, you know, don't do this for results. Like, you know, you have to have an intention of becoming self— becoming like better at the skill and the craft. And Once you start building and following these frameworks, methods, you will identify your own ways to basically promote the product yourself without having an audience, and they will come. That's the whole point. Like I said, my journey started with 200 followers. Now I have 20+K followers because I started like building in public, followed like, you know, the things I said. had like, I still have a few early believers who actually root for me and vice versa. When they launch something, I actually root for them, so on and so forth. So internet is kind of a pass to some games. So rely on that and yeah, have fun, have fun like building stuff, becoming better at your scale. You learn a lot of stuff as you launch these things and don't bother about nobody's looking at it and whatnot. A lot of projects are throwaway projects. So keep that in mind. But you know, at the end of the day, it compounds over time. And you, as the goal is to like become prolific more than anything else. So that's it. Keep building, have fun, and keep going.
