Grow one social account to roughly 10,000 followers before building anything, choosing content that does the opposite of what other accounts in the niche are doing so it stands out in the feed. On X specifically, Greg names replying to other people's posts as the growth tactic.

“On X, being a reply guy is the best way to 10,000 followers.”

Greg frames this as a deliberate bet that distribution, not product, is the scarce resource, so the audience is built before there is anything to sell.

“our thesis is that distribution is harder than building a product.”

Idea sourcing and early distribution both run through existing internet communities: the team watches Reddit, Facebook groups and Discords for what is taking off, and later stands up its own free community or Discord as the first live experiment for a candidate idea.

“We get ideas by immersing ourselves in subreddits, Facebook groups, Discords, and anywhere else internet communities gather.”

Late Checkout's design agency (LCA) capped an invite-only newsletter at exactly 500 of what Greg calls the most interesting people in tech in Silicon Valley and NYC, recruited by direct message rather than open signup, with a waitlist model where losing your spot to inactivity opens it to someone else.

“We just DMd the most interested people we found and asked them if they'd be down to join the list.”

Greg's own explanation is that curating a small, credible list built relationships with exactly the kind of people who become clients, rather than treating the list as an ad channel.

“We're not just sending emails. We're curating a community of the most interesting people in tech.”