# Bluesky starter pack before open-ended posting

> Create a focused starter pack before you start posting broadly, so the first people you attract can land inside a real community instead of a blank social graph.

- Canonical HTML: https://growth.iangoh.com/growth-ideas/bluesky-starter-pack-before-open-ended-posting/
- Source: [arxiv.org](https://arxiv.org/abs/2501.11605)
- GrowthDex source hub: [ICWSM 2025: Bootstrapping Social Networks - Lessons from Bluesky Starter Packs](/sources/icwsm-2025-bootstrapping-social-networks-lessons-from-bluesky-starter-pa/)
- Last checked: 2026-06-09T09:09:03.000Z
- Rarity: rare
- Budget: low
- Channels: Community-led Growth, Social, Activation
- Stages: starter pack, social graph, activation, community seeding, network formation


## Why this can grow

A new social account usually asks the audience to do too much work. They have to decide whether to follow, who else matters in the space, and where the ongoing conversation lives. Bluesky starter packs compress that cost. The platform lets you bundle recommended follows and custom feeds, which means a founder can turn one vague invitation into a guided first session. The research on starter packs matters here because it shows the feature was not cosmetic. A relatively small share of users were members of packs, yet the packs had an outsized effect on network formation and visibility. The practical lesson is simple: do not ask the market to assemble your room for you. Build the room, then invite people into it.

## Ian's take

From scaling consumer platforms across MENA and Southeast Asia, my default is to distrust growth work that only looks good in a slide. My bias is to treat this as a small market test first. Make the audience narrow, make the promise concrete, and let the first real response decide whether it deserves more work. For activation, the useful question is not whether users liked the page. It is whether they got to the first meaningful win faster. For this tactic, I would watch one clear growth signal before putting more time or budget behind it.

## Action plan

1. Define one narrow startup segment where bluesky starter pack before open-ended posting can create a measurable lift.
2. Turn the tactic into one offer, page, campaign, or workflow for the Community-led Growth and Social channel.
3. Use the evidence from arxiv.org to set the first version of the message, format, and audience.
4. Launch a small test for 7 to 14 days with one success metric: one measurable growth signal.
5. Review the result, keep the winning message, remove weak variants, and turn the learning into a repeatable growth playbook.

## Source-backed example

An ICWSM 2025 study on Bluesky found that starter packs played an outsized role in early network formation and user visibility even though only a small minority of accounts were included in them.

## Adjacent tactics in the same lane

- [Bluesky custom feed inside starter pack before follow churn](/growth-ideas/bluesky-custom-feed-inside-starter-pack-before-follow-churn/) - 2 shared channels, 1 shared stage
- [Devvit one-tap home feed loop before deep session design](/growth-ideas/devvit-one-tap-home-feed-loop-before-deep-session-design/) - 2 shared channels, 1 shared stage
- [Bluesky shareable pack link before algorithmic hope](/growth-ideas/bluesky-shareable-pack-link-before-algorithmic-hope/) - 2 shared channels
- [Slack onboarding starts at the first invocation context](/growth-ideas/slack-onboarding-starts-at-the-first-invocation-context/) - 1 shared channel, 1 shared stage

## Read GrowthDex essays

Browse the plain-English essay index at [GrowthDex Blog](/blog/).

## Related GrowthDex essays

- [The social account should arrive with a map](/blog/the-social-account-should-arrive-with-a-map/) - social growth, community-led growth, brand trust

## Advisory

If you want help turning this into a working growth system, Ian Goh offers advisory at https://iangoh.com/advisory.