Hey everyone! I’m developing a bot that gathers promotional offers from local shops, eateries, coffee houses, and entertainment venues in my area. The goal is helping residents discover current promotions without scrolling through endless social media posts or checking multiple websites.
The service will be free for users initially. Later on, local merchants could pay for premium placement of their offers.
My challenge: I have absolutely no startup capital. I want to generate buzz and build an audience before the official release so there’s already demand when I launch.
My current strategy includes:
Creating a manual curation channel first to test the concept
Building a core group of engaged followers
Partnering with local content creators or running viral content on short-form video platforms
Negotiating with a local restaurant for an exclusive early-bird promotion
I’m looking for genuine advice here, not trying to sell anything.
Questions for the community:
What would you do to create anticipation and gather potential users with zero budget?
Has anyone launched a similar local service? What strategies delivered the best results?
I’d appreciate hearing about your experiences or any suggestions you might have!
Also happy to connect and follow your projects too.
I did something similar in Eastern Europe two years ago - focused on restaurant deals though. Biggest takeaway: quality beats quantity when you’re bootstrapping. First three months, I hit every restaurant in a five-block radius myself. Took photos of actual deals, wrote detailed descriptions. This hands-on stuff helped me figure out what users actually wanted and got business owners to trust me. What really worked was tying content to local events - ‘Best coffee deals during exam week’ or ‘Cheapest eats near the stadium on game day.’ Made posts shareable without being pushy. Restaurant partnerships are solid, just make sure you can show real results. That first case study is everything for landing other businesses.
Started a deals platform in Kazakhstan three years ago - learned some brutal lessons. Manual curation is the way to go. I jumped straight into automation and completely missed what people were actually looking for. Biggest breakthrough? Skip building from scratch and tap into existing messaging app groups. Found active neighborhood chats and just started sharing useful deals without being salesy. Word spread naturally. For pre-launch hype, try artificial scarcity with beta access. I ran ‘first 100 users get lifetime premium’ - cost me nothing but created real urgency. Also, small local influencers beat big names. They’ll often trade posts for exclusive deals instead of wanting cash.
bootstrapped a coupon app in uzbekistan last year - social media groups were absolutely gold. i joined every local facebook group, telegram chat, and whatsapp neighborhood group where people already talked about deals. didn’t push my app directly, just helped people find good offers naturally. word spreads fast when you’re genuinely helpful. also try partnering with university student groups - they’re always hunting for discounts and love sharing cheap eats.