HowTheyGotUsersHowTheyGotUsers

The Anti-Email Strategy

The Anti-Email Strategy is a email & newsletters tactic for getting your first users: Deliberately send almost nothing, and only fire an email when it carries something the reader genuinely wants, so the channel becomes a signal instead of noise.

It's a strong fit for Consumer / mobile apps teams, and works especially well for consumer mobile apps, any. As a email & newsletters play, plan for low effort and expect results to build gradually over time, all grounded in 2 linked primary sources.

Email & newslettersLow effortSlow

Why does email & newsletters work for this?

Scarcity conditions readers to associate your sender name with payoff, so opens stay sky-high precisely because you almost never ask for attention.

The exact steps (4)

The full step-by-step this founder ran, what they posted, where, and in what order, plus the watch-outs, is part of the library.

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Sources

Works for
Any / universalConsumer / mobile apps

Frequently asked

What kind of products does the "The Anti-Email Strategy" tactic work for?
It is a good fit for Consumer / mobile apps — pick it when your product looks like that, since the play is shaped around how those users find new tools.
How is the "The Anti-Email Strategy" tactic verified?
It is drawn from 2 primary sources — real founder write-ups and interviews, not generic advice. They are linked in the Sources section above so you can read the original accounts yourself.
How much effort is it and how fast are results?
It is low effort, and results tend to be slow.
Where can I see the exact step-by-step?
The full step-by-step a founder ran, documented via I Built A $1M App In 5 Hours and I Built This $5M/Year Business From A Van, is in the paid library.

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