How we built the Founding 100

“The single mechanism that solved both sides of our cold-start problem.”

Every marketplace dies the same way: empty when you launch, then nobody comes because it's empty. The standard playbook is to fake it — write fake reviews, post fake jobs, pretend there's activity. We hated that playbook and looked for an honest version.

What we landed on was the Founding 100: the first 100 verified implementers get lifetime Pro, a Gold verification badge, permanent leaderboard placement, and monthly founder office hours. The cap closes at 100, forever. Spot #100 will be auctioned for charity.

This solved three problems at once:

Supply seeding. We hand-sourced 100 profiles from public LinkedIn + GitHub + X data and pre-populated them as 'Unclaimed — claim this profile'. Email matching the public domain auto-promoted to Bronze. ~30% claimed within 30 days.
Velocity story. A public counter on the landing page ('87 of 100 spots filled') created mild FOMO without being manipulative.
Press narrative. The Founding 100 became a recurring beat — every press piece could reference 'the lifetime Pro badge for the first 100'.

Here's the full mechanic, the source list we used, the email templates that drove claim rate, and the lessons from getting to 87 of 100 in 8 weeks.

Get the next one in your inbox.

We don't publish often — when we do, it's because we found something worth sitting with.

“The single mechanism that solved both sides of our cold-start problem.”

This solved three problems at once:

Supply seeding. We hand-sourced 100 profiles from public LinkedIn + GitHub + X data and pre-populated them as 'Unclaimed — claim this profile'. Email matching the public domain auto-promoted to Bronze. ~30% claimed within 30 days.
Velocity story. A public counter on the landing page ('87 of 100 spots filled') created mild FOMO without being manipulative.
Press narrative. The Founding 100 became a recurring beat — every press piece could reference 'the lifetime Pro badge for the first 100'.

Here's the full mechanic, the source list we used, the email templates that drove claim rate, and the lessons from getting to 87 of 100 in 8 weeks.

Get the next one in your inbox.

We don't publish often — when we do, it's because we found something worth sitting with.