How Kleo got its first 100 users
Before any public launch, the team built a waitlist through "edu-selling" content on LinkedIn — posts that educated their target audience (founders, entrepreneurs, creators) on LinkedIn content problems without any explicit CTA or product plug. One example post was from a shared account called "The LinkedIn Creator," titled something like "Here is how to write the best LinkedIn tips I found," which walked through common pain points and ended with a soft pointer to the tool. Jake posted similar problem-framing content. None of these posts named Cleo or linked directly to a purchase page — the product remained a "secret" that only waitlist members knew about. The waitlist was nurtured over roughly 4 weeks pre-launch with a 10+ email sequence. The very first email was titled around "The problem with AI content and why we're different," directly tackling the #1 objection (why not just use free ChatGPT/Claude?). Subsequent emails continued educating on the problem space with no CTAs, purely building trust. The final email said "Cleo 2.0 is live — try it now," and because trust had been pre-built, it converted immediately. The combination of scarcity messaging (only 500 spots), a lifetime 50% discount offer, and a LinkedIn Live demo/pitch webinar converted the waitlist into paying customers within the first day of launch, hitting $30K MRR in 4 days.