Word of mouth was cultivated deliberately: the team invested in fast, generous customer support rather than ad spend.

“But given that we had a product people liked, we went all-in on customer service.”

Scott's own explanation is that people trust friends' recommendations far more than advertising.

“People don't trust ads; people trust their friends.”

Scott ran Reddit AMAs on r/IAmA and r/entrepreneur that hit the front page; one crashed the site with a signup spike right after launch.

“Scott went on Reddit and did an AMA, which crashed the website and once again created a huge spike in sign ups.”

He credits Reddit as a genuinely powerful resource and treats it as reciprocal: contribute real answers to flight questions rather than only self-promoting.

“First, Reddit is an incredibly powerful resource.”

A friend who worked at Business Insider flagged the story to a colleague, who wrote an article that went viral, linking to Scott's email list and taking it from 300 to 5,000 subscribers overnight.

“A friend of mine who worked at Business Insider flagged it for a colleague, who wound up writing an article that went viral. The article included a link to my rinkydink email list, and literally overnight it went from 300 subscribers to 5,000.”

Scott attributes the spike to a mix of preparation and luck rather than a repeatable PR playbook.

“Getting those early subscribers was equal parts skill and luck.”

Rather than test paid acquisition, the team deliberately reinvested that budget into customer support instead of ad spend.

“And instead of putting money into ads, we put money into hiring customer support folks instead.”