The high-status individuals dictate the communication platform. And what it means for your growth as a consumer app.

I talk about status signaling quite a bit because it is one of the things that comes up more and more when I talk with consumer app founders about distribution.

Distribution is not easy. Especially if you are relying on organic and don’t have a lot of VC dollars to burn. If you are a consumer app starting out, you have to think very clearly about why the user wants to install your product. What motivates someone to try a new thing?

Let’s talk about a new consumer messaging app.

You want to engage someone on Twitter. You reach out to them on DMs. After the initial chit chat, you want to move to another medium and have a longer conversation. Who decides the medium?

Let’s say you don’t even get a reply on your cold DM, and were wondering if there was a way to reach their inbox.

People might seem equal, but they are not. There is always an asymmetry of power between you, the cold DM sender and the person who is responding to you. Imagine the receiver is busy and is high status.

That person might say, “hey I want to talk to you but I am not sure if you are worth my time and I get a lot of DMs already. I don’t want to share my personal phone number and email ID. So there is this third product which you can use to reach out.”

This is the high status receiver deciding the medium of subsequent communication. The low status person will always have to move to the platform of choice of the high status person.

This is why for pitch meetings for a hot founder (hot as in the product being hot), the VC will move to even Microsoft Teams if needed to win the deal.

While a VC might even ignore a DocSend link, and ask to send the pitch as a deck, if they can’t bucket the founder.

Coming back to the messaging app, the new messaging app will take off only if the high status person chooses to be exclusive on that messaging app and there is no other way to reach out to that person.

If you want to talk to Tanmay Bhat on Instagram, you will have to super DM him. Unless you can find someone who can do an intro. What Tanmay Bhat is signaling is that he gets thousands of DMs every day and he wants a separate inbox where he can filter.

[For the rest of the post we will assume Tanmay Bhat has the same super DM link on Twitter instead of Instagram because it makes it easier for me. I don’t have an Instagram account, and I understand only Twitter]

Tanmay Bhat putting super DM as his link in bio is free advertising for the product. Users who want to reach Tanmay must use it, which forces adoption. This creates an organic distribution loop where people learn about super DM not through paid Twitter ads but through necessity, after landing on Tanmay Bhat’s bio.

So one thing I talk to consumer founders (messaging or social) is how they can be the link in bio for Tanmay Bhat (some high status person) who gets a lot of visits on their profile. If your product can insert itself as the preferred mode of communication for high-status individuals, it can gain distribution.

The more people are exposed to a product through high status individuals, the more it propagates naturally.

If you are building a new messaging app:

  • Can your product be the default link in bio for high-status users?
  • Can your product help them manage inbound attention (like super DM) or create exclusivity?
  • Can you create a status-driven loop where adoption itself signals exclusivity?

The earlier in the funnel your product appears (example: as a link in bio), the more discovery happens.

Can you go even earlier?

The game here is about hacking visibility through user-driven placements—bios, profile pictures, and social behaviors.

If your users are on Twitter, then for anyone landing on home you would want them to see the banner of your app. But of course, Twitter is not going to do it for you. They are going to upsell the user to Twitter premium instead. You can’t have that screen estate. So what can you do?

We have discussed the link in bio.

Can you ask them to pin your product’s tweet in their profile? Their banner image?

If you have leverage, and this person is your investor, maybe you can ask them to do that. But that is after someone lands on the profile.

What are the things people see on timeline?

A post. Name of the person. Their profile photo.

Yes, you can incentivize your high status users to post about your product every time they come on Twitter, but they won’t do that.

Biggest win is if you can turn your product into a movement. Bitcoin pulled this off because laser eyes on profile photos became a meme + a status signal. But it is very hard to replicate unless your product has deep ideological backing. And people’s incentives are aligned with the movement growing.

Till then the link in bio will do.