Coders & Creators: How We're Building Meet-Ting
We launched Ting a few weeks ago and I’ve had a lot of people ask how we got noticed + grew the waitlist.
I wanted to share some of that here, but also zoom out into how we’re thinking about building and growing at the same time - so I wrote a longer piece about it.
Feels like the timing is right: one of my favourite VCs wrote about about attention as the last scarce resource, A16Z is talking about momentum as a moat, and the Cluely team keeps hammering on the art of love/hate posts on X to earn attention.
There’s also that YC line (I think it was YC...) I love: startups really just need two things - people to make the product, and people to get users.
That’s basically how we’re thinking about Ting, though I call it: coders + creators.
(Haters will say coders are creators and creators can be coders, but give me a break if that’s your first reaction...)
Anyway, to save you a Substack click, here are the takeaways:
Solo dev or first-time builder? Get real technical leadership early. A CTO isn’t just someone who ships - they run sprints, prioritise, and shape the roadmap.
Building with AI? You need AI engineers. Otherwise you’ll learn the hard way that LLMs aren’t just “efficiency tools” - they change how you design the whole stack.
Getting noticed matters. Our waitlist jumped to ~1,000 by focusing on scroll-stopping content, joining conversations, and making every update feel shareable.
Launch tweets need to slap. Forget clever copy - ask if someone would DM or screenshot it.
Video tips: Hook in the first seconds, give people a reason to stick, and carry them to the end. Completion + replays = algorithm gold for consideration in further distribution.
Building still learning, growing is my background (former head of social media across all ByteDance apps + TikTok), but I'm sure there's more lessons and paths forward, got any tips - please share in thread?
Full write-up (with context + mistakes) here: https://chiefting.substack.com/p/coders-creators-how-were-building
Hope helpful.
Replies