How Lovable got its users

Before lovable.dev there was gpt-engineer, a free CLI Anton Osika open sourced under his own GitHub account. That repo, not the founder, collected the developer audience and the waitlist Lovable later launched into. Be plain about it: the growth posts worked because a list already existed. Copy the shape, not the scale. Ship one free single-purpose tool under your own name, in public, and let it gather people before you have anything to sell.

done whenDo strangers already gather anywhere around something you gave away? If your only asset is the paid product, the free precursor is the step you skipped.

Anton's X milestone posts run one template: a checkable superlative ('the fastest growing startup in Europe'), the metric, then 'this is how we did it' as a numbered thread. The number hooks, the thread pays. Find the narrowest category where your claim is literally true, and post it on a fixed rhythm with the raw dashboard screenshot, not a redrawn chart. Press and podcast invites followed the curve, nobody pitched them, so expect quiet while yours is ordinary.

done whenWrite your superlative, then try to break it. If you cannot name the category and the boundary that make it true, narrow it until you can.

Lovable's own marketing runs inside Lovable: the customer story linked from the homepage sits at founder-stories-showcase.lovable.app, on the product's own subdomain, so the URL is the demo. Build your landing page, changelog and customer stories inside your own product and leave that evidence in the address bar. Costs nothing, and it turns every page the founder links to into working proof instead of a claim.

done whenLook at what your own site is built with. If a visitor cannot tell you use your product from the page they are reading, you are skipping a free demo.

Every podcast, livestream and outside review Anton appears in gets a page on lovable.dev/videos, where 'Anton Osika' is a filter tag sitting next to Community, Livestreams and Reviews. The founder is a browsable section of the company site. Say yes to the smallest shows nobody wants, then republish each appearance on your own domain with a written summary and tags. You keep the asset after the host's channel goes quiet.

done whenCount the interviews and streams you have done that live only on someone else's channel. If your domain has no page for them, you rented that content.

Two moves that need no name. Quote-post your own company account with one human line instead of writing separate posts, the way @antonosika sits on top of @Lovable's announcements. And stop hosting events yourself: lovable.dev/community runs on ambassadors and campus leaders who organise their own workshops, with Lovable supplying support, not staff. Give your most active users a title and a template before you have a community team.

done whenHas anyone in your user base already run a meetup or a group chat without being asked? If not, you are too early for programs and belong in DMs.