Is building an audience now more important than building the product?
Ten years ago, founders used to lock themselves in a room, build something great, and then tell the world.
Now, it feels like the script has flipped:
People are building in public from day 1
Products go viral before they even exist
Investors care about your followers almost as much as your traction
And here’s the thing:
I’ve noticed that audience-first founders are raising faster, getting more beta testers, and recruiting easier, even when their product is half-baked.
But I think there’s a danger: sometimes I see the “community” grows faster than the product matures, and you end up with hype that’s impossible to live up to.
So my question is, if you had to choose:
Would you focus on building an audience first or the product first?
Or is the only real answer… both?
Replies
The more popular you are, the more likely people are to "pardon" your fails.
I could see many influencers (they have become influencers thanks to "drama"), with 800k followers, releasing crisps at a price 2x as expensive as usual; it tasted horrible, but people were blown away.
Life has become sensational.
@busmark_w_nika True, popularity can buy you some forgiveness. But if the product doesn’t deliver, that trust fades fast. We can see it in many projects...
@vincenzo_manto Depends on how literate the audience is :D if audience is unavare and easy to manipulate/influence, they will be loyal :D
depends on the type of company?
if you raised VC funding then early customers are there to help you find PMF and hit that magic point where you grow insanely fast.
if you're bootstrapping then it's possible to treat it as a high-tech consultancy and cater to your "whales".
It feels like anything that would’ve seemed insane pre-pandemic is now what’s likely to work, almost like a fever dream. Think Doge coin/meme coins, meme stocks, big brands running meme-driven campaigns, and startups using shock value just to grab attention.
As long as there’s an audience, it’s perceived as valuable. And with building being easier than ever, if a few similar products are competing, the one with the biggest follower base often comes out on top.
Not saying it’s necessarily wrong, it’s just that it can be tough for serious builders to keep up.
@theideator Attention is the new currency, and a big audience often beats product alone. But what if you don’t have one? How do you start building real momentum then?
Obviously it's both but something I'm noticing is, naturally, as it’s gotten easier to spin up a product and create something new, it’s gotten way harder to craft a story and build an audience that actually sticks. It's getting exponentially harder to make noise about your work so personally I'm learning to building an audience first.
The product’s table stakes now; the narrative is what gets people to care. If you can’t tell the story, the product might never even get its shot. But again, if the product isn't worth the story, then it's the cart before the horse.
@dheerajdotexe Totally agree. I think product quality is the baseline now, but the real challenge is cutting through the noise with a compelling story, and I’m all for keeping it real, no “fake it till you make it” vibes
An audience gets you attention, but the product keeps it. If you build hype too early, you risk overpromising and underdelivering. If you build only the product, you might launch to crickets.
The best thing is growing both side by side — enough audience to test and share, enough product to impress when they show up.
Both! with a 70% audience and a 30% product focus. As with many things in life, the answer lies along a spectrum. 😎