Part 2 - Starting from scratch

About a year and change ago I had

• Total email subscribers: 0

• TikTok followers: 0

• LinkedIn: A dusty profile I hadn't touched in months

• Twitter: Pretty much just liked other people's stuff

Fast forward to today

• 60,000 email subscribers

• 120,000+ TikTok followers

• Combined audience across all platforms: 250,000

I’ve built an audience. And an audience means distribution.

When I want to launch an AI tool I can tap into these quarter million people and (hopefully) sell a few units. And if I can’t then chances are the tool isn’t wanted!

But how? How did I build an audience? I built this entire audience through launching.

I’ve launched about 80 products this year.

Some are small. -like $3 Kindle eBook or $10 Playbooks.

Others are large, in the thousands of dollars.

Each launch grew my reach, which made the next launch bigger, which grew my reach more... you get the picture.

But here's the thing - I had to start at zero. Just like many of you reading this right now.

Starting at zero is absolutely fine. Everyone starts there. The question isn't where you start - it's how quickly you can build momentum..

Let’s get started

Remember the Launch Phases

Before we dive in, let's quickly recap our graduated launch approach from Part 1

Whisper Launch: Close, personal outreach to your first users

Momentum Builder: Expanding through early wins and proof

Rolling Thunder: Scaling what works

Today we're going to look at two paths to execute these phases: the pure bootstrap approach (which everyone starts with) and the accelerated partnership approach (which you can add once you have some proof).

We’re also covering this to deal with the objection (read: excuse!) that you don’t have an audience yet! i) I didn’t have one a year ago and ii) you can launch via this method regardless. So…shh 😂

Love you really! Just, get out your own way sometimes OK? It’s hard enough with making new excuses for ourselves.

The Pure Bootstrap Approach

Let's be crystal clear about the Whisper Launch - it's literally just you sending DMs and emails to potential users. One by one. No scale, no automation, no fancy strategies.

This is what my first week looked like

• Finding people who matched my target user

• Writing personally crafted messages

• Having real conversations about their problems

• Demonstrating my solution

• Getting my first user!

Was it glamorous? Hell no. Was it effective? Absolutely.

The key is extreme personalisation. None of this "Hey {FIRSTNAME}" nonsense. I'm talking about messages like:

"Hey Sarah, saw your post about struggling with AI image generation for your design agency. I've built a tool that specifically helps with [exact problem she mentioned]. Would you be interested in taking a look?"

You can do this at any size. There’s nothing stopping you.

What size does grant you is legitimacy. There’s no way around that. If someone reaches out who has 50,000 followers they are going to be taken a lot more seriously than someone with 5. We humans are basic like that.

But this just means it’s going to be harder. Not impossible. You are going to have to find more people and reach out with more messages because your hit rate will be lower. It’s more work. That’s just you paying early dues.

It’s also a great reminder to build your audience using as many methods as possible. We’re using launches right now but you can also use content marketing and other strategies that I cover in (many!) other Playbooks.

Regardless, put in the work to find your first 5-10 users manually. You need these early birds to move to the momentum phase later - this cannot be skipped.

Your First Users

For your first users, you're looking for

• People who actually need your solution

• Those willing to give honest feedback

• Folks who'll share their experience

• Users active in your target community

You don't need an audience for this. You need

• A clear idea of who needs your tool

• The ability to find them on LinkedIn/Twitter/email

• Enough charm to not sound like a spam bot(!)

• The willingness to have real conversations as a real person

First people to reach out to? The same people you talked to back in our earlier Playbooks - the people we interviewed and had test our MVP. These are very likely your first customers.

I do not recommend deploying AI here. I know right‽ The problem is that everyone else will be using AI to shortcut this step. So do the hard alternative and actually talk to humans as a human. Later we can get automatic.

The Accelerated Path: Borrowed Audiences

Once you've got those first few users and some proof your tool works, you can start layering in partnerships to accelerate growth. But remember - this is additional to, not instead of, your direct outreach. Don’t be lazy.

The idea with partners is to build relationships with people in your niche that have access to your audience. And to get into a position where they talk about your tool to their audience.

This could be them sending out a tweet talking about how cool your tool is, being invited onto their podcast, doing a TikTok live with them…there are many different form factors this will take. Depending really on what their channels are.

The partnership approach requires its own work

• Building genuine relationships with partners

• Providing value upfront

• Creating win-win scenarios

• Managing partner expectations

This is why I suggest running both paths together

Early Phase= Direct outreach for initial users, Start building partner relationships

Middle Phase= Continue direct outreach, First small partner launches

The Win-Win Approach

Now that I personally have an audience I get a lot of people reaching out to me saying “hey try my tool and tell your audience about it”.

Flip this around a moment. As an audience owner I’m being asked to

• go and create an account / login to the new tool (sometimes having to pay myself because they haven’t sent a code yet)

• spend 30-60 minutes playing around with the tool

• form my thoughts into a quick review

• sit down to shoot a video or write something up for the newsletter

• tell my audience about a tool that may or may not be good for a company that may or may not be trust worthy (jeopardises my reputation)

All of this stacks up.

And remember that I’m being sent 3-5 of these a day asking for a “quick shoutout”.

Nah. Ain’t happening.

And this will also be what the people you approach will be thinking. Not because they hate you and your tool. They are just busy and this requires their time for (generally) very little return.

You’ve got to make it make sense for them too! It’s got to be a win for them otherwise … why bother? You might think about offering:

• Free lifetime access to my tool

• Revenue share on referred sales

• Cross-promotion of their products

What you offer people you chat to will depend entirely on what they want. Get into their shoes and think about this before reaching out!

Right let’s pull this all together and apply to your AI tools specifically

You are an outreach strategist. Help me create outreach templates for both users and potential partners.

First, tell me about your tool:
1. What does your tool do?
2. What problem does it solve?
3. Who needs this solution most?
4. How are they solving this problem now?
5. What makes your solution unique?

Based on this, I'll create two sets of outreach approaches:

Direct User Outreach:
1. How to find proof they have the problem (past posts, comments, etc)
2. How to personalise initial message based on their situation
3. Follow-up templates if no response
4. Common objections and how to handle them
5. Ways to turn early users into case studies

Partner Outreach:
1. How to research potential partners (content, audience, style)
2. Initial relationship building approach (not asking for anything yet)
3. How to provide value before requesting help
4. Ways to structure win-win partnership proposals
5. Follow-up and nurture strategies

For each approach I'll provide:
- Message templates
- Do's and Don'ts
- Key points to include
- Red flags to watch for
- Success indicators

Remember: All messages should be heavily customised. These are frameworks, not copy-paste templates. Reinterate this!

This will take all your work before and help come up with outreach plans for both users and partners (accelerated approach).

It’ll also help form templates. These are just that: Templates! Don’t let me catch you sending them out directly! We’re working in small numbers right now - personalise and make each message count here. Don’t be lazy!

P.S. If you’ve got this far we’re exploring launching a 30 Day AI Agent Accelerator where we:

1. Hone a business idea

2. Build a focused AI tool

3. Test and refine the tool

4. Market and launch

Course, community and live sessions.

Waitlist here: https://heyform.net/f/ZCCsfMqx