Billion-Dollar Apps Don't Cold Start with Ads—They Start by Finding People
Deep Thoughts on AI and Aspirations —— ByteDance Deep Thinking Circle
A repeatedly misunderstood question: How do early-stage products get their first 1000 users? Many people’s instinct is “run ads, buy traffic, create viral content.”
But look at products that later became major companies—their cold start approach was almost never paid advertising. It was something more fundamental: find the right people and make them the first believers in your product.
The First 1000 Are Believers, Not Traffic
There’s a huge difference between traffic and believers. Traffic is “people who saw you,” believers are “people willing to speak for you.”
A few real examples make this clear. One social app’s earliest users came from the founder talking to people one-by-one on a college campus; one food delivery app started as just a website and a stack of flyers posted around campus to test if anyone would order; one music app relied on invitation codes in the early days, making it so people “could only use it if invited.”
What these approaches have in common: none were buying traffic—they were finding people who would genuinely like the product and be willing to talk about it. These people don’t need to be convinced with money; they are the product’s most authentic early users and its best free advocates.
Why “Direct Contact” Is the Most Effective Cold Start
A counterintuitive observation: Nearly all successful products used “unscalable” methods early on—personally finding users, solving problems hands-on, providing one-on-one service.
Why does this work? Because a product’s value is often vague in the early stages and requires users to experience it themselves. You can’t make everyone understand your value with a single advertising slogan. You can only demonstrate it hands-on to a subset of people, let them feel it, and then they spread the word for you.
A useful test: If you can’t personally help the first 100 users experience your value, you won’t be able to help the first 10,000 users experience it through advertising either. Cold starting isn’t a marketing problem—it’s about “finding people who can perceive the value.”
Let Your First Users Speak for You
Another key action: make your first batch of users your evangelists.
Many early products actively give users a sense of “I’m part of this product”—through invitation systems, communities, or special status for early users. This isn’t about appearing exclusive; it’s about creating a sense of ownership where users feel “this is part of me.” Users with a sense of belonging will proactively recommend you to friends.
This is the core cold start loop: find people who can perceive value → make them believers → let them speak for you. The first 1000 believers are your product’s best marketing team.
Two Truths You Must See Clearly
Don’t get carried away by these examples. Two things require clear-headedness.
First, survivorship bias. You see the cold starts of successful products, not failed ones. The same methods might succeed or fail. There’s no universal formula for cold starting, only a direction—find the right people and demonstrate value to them hands-on.
Second, the first 1000 and the first 10,000 require different playbooks. Cold starting relies on unscalable methods (manual, one-on-one, believers); scaling relies on another set (advertising, channels, systems). Confusing these two stages is a common mistake: some try to scale with cold start methods and find it inefficient; others start with advertising right away when product value hasn’t been validated, burning money with no response.
Action Items
The three most important things to do when cold starting:
One, clearly define who your target users are, where they are today, how they live, and what attracts them.
Two, personally find and serve the earliest batch of people (even if it’s only 10), and let them genuinely experience the value.
Three, give these people a sense of identity as “I participated in building this product,” making them willing to speak for you.
The first 1000 come from finding people, not buying traffic. This sounds simple, but many products never manage it in their entire lifetime.
Key points: The first 1000 are believers not traffic; direct contact is the most effective cold start; let early users speak for you; beware of survivorship bias, the first 1000 and 10,000 are different playbooks.