The Stepchickens cult

If you’re an avid TikTok binger, there’s no doubt you’ve heard of Stepchickens.

The self-proclaimed cult was started by comedian Melissa Ong, aka the Mother Hen. Her call to action inspired a wave of creators to change their profile to what you see above (yes, that’s a pic of the Mother Hen). “Rise up stepchickens!” they said.

The cult expanded into an app and quickly shot toward the top of the App Store. The app is a community of communities with creativity and playfulness at its core. There’s a place for fans of Fortnite, Billie Eilish, cats (of course), k-pop, sneakerheads, and a ton more.

It’s also a tool to create memes and TikTok-friendly videos. We played around with it, impressed with the level of detail that went into its tooling.

Stepchickens is a perfect example of the power of community and how building a community-first strategy might be the best way to start. Mother Hen certainly isn’t the only one to execute a community-first strategy. Casey Neistat spent several years building an audience on YouTube before launching beme, an app designed for his massive following of consumers and creators.

Many makers and entrepreneurs often build a product in isolation. The “build it and they will come” strategy rarely works. If you’re building something new, consider involving a community of people excited about your vision. These people will provide the best feedback and help get the word out.

Plug: We built Ship to do just that. It’s a tool to find early adopters and involve them in the building process.

If you’re looking to join a new cult, check out Stepchickens. 🐔

Try Stepchickens 🐔

Grow your app with Setapp: revenue, users, & AI

You shipped the app. Now comes the part nobody warns you about.

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Setapp is trying to take it off your plate.

You probably know Setapp as the subscription marketplace — one monthly price, hundreds of Mac apps. On May 21st, they turned toward developers. The pitch is simple: list your app, reach users who are already looking, and let Setapp handle the business layer.