what was the first Rant in devrant? 🤔
I mean, how the first user(s) was convinced to use devrant if he opens it and finds the timeline empty?

maybe @dfox can answer this question, if possible 😊

I can't find the link now, but it was kind of a test in prod ;-)

I can only go back to this guy

https://devrant.com/rants/1000/

I’m pretty sure it was this one: https://devrant.com/rants/489/...

@dfox so I wonder how first users found devrant interesting? because when I found it, it was already with many users

@lazyDev maybe they went Reddit route and made a bunch of fake posts from different usernames to make it look like there was activity? I mean that's what I would do myself anyways.

Fake it till you make it.

@lazyDev it was semi interesting, rants had more meaning and the memes didn’t really exist, or the handful that were around were relatable.

"fuck it, no one will ever read this, let's rant around"
oh boy was he wrong

Long anwer: You will not get the answer to this question from the source :D But there is more or less a standardized way to fix this problem.

This is the same problem with any social platform, and especially dating sites.

You either use bot accounts, and dial them down as the real traffic kicks in, or at the bare minimum organize a bunch of people to post on your platform, and then advertise and get traffic.

Short answer: Bot accounts or organized posting.

We encouraged a few friends to post, then bought some ad traffic. It wasn't much to start, but people got the idea and posted their own content

Over the years I have ran several communities around games. I have discovered that there are two steps that are important to cross.
First is 10 active users. It apparently validates your existence to others.
Second 20 active users (and having concurrent active users around 10), after that people find you organically and things just grow.

It ha always been struggle to get that ten people, if I start alone. But if I collect that ten initially, and then launch, it goes fast and smooth.