How Polymarket Got Its First User (and Beat the Cold Start)

Cold starts are a nightmare for any marketplace. Polymarket, a decentralized prediction market, found a clever way out. This is the story of how they got their first user and, more importantly, how they turned early trickles of activity into a steady flow of growth.

Maybe you don’t run a crypto exchange (most of us don’t), but Polymarket’s early moves offer major insights for anyone building a two-sided platform—especially if you’re an impatient startup founder who wants results yesterday. By the end of this, you’ll learn how to seed your own marketplace (or any product community) so you’re not sitting around wondering where the users are.

1. How They Lured the First User

Talk about an impossible situation: new prediction market, zero predictions, zero liquidity, zero participants. Polymarket tackled this by creating a question that had immediate relevance. They launched with a question around COVID-19 lockdowns in NYC. Ask yourself: if you had to bet on one thing in 2020, what would it be? Right—lockdown policies.

That question was Polymarket’s day-one content—instantly attracting anyone who cared about the outcome, effectively solving the “but there’s nothing here” problem. The founder literally became the market’s first user, but he was smart about it, too: he recruited a few crypto-intrigued friends, inviting them to place small bets and share results on Twitter. Suddenly, it wasn’t just a ghost town. It was a niche hangout where you could, surprisingly, bet on real stuff in real time.

2. Seeding Those First 100 Users: Actual Hustle

One thing Polymarket did—this is old-school but works like magic—was simple one-on-one outreach. The team DMed crypto influencers, posted in relevant subreddits, and answered Quora-style questions about prediction markets with: “Here, try ours.” Yes, it’s grunt work. But that initial hustle is mandatory.

They also toyed with a test version (like a “play money” environment). People could try it, mess around, and see if the platform was user-friendly. This lowered the psychological barrier—there’s a big difference between “I’ll check this out for free” and “Let me risk actual cash on a brand new site.” Once testers found it cool, they’d nudge their network to join.

3. Creating Buzz with Timely Events

The 2020 election was a big gamble (pun intended) for Polymarket. But guess what? It worked. While mainstream bettors were limited by archaic betting regulations or stuck with less user-friendly platforms, Polymarket’s brand-new approach stood out. People flocked to it for that one massive event.

It’s a classic playbook: if you’re launching a platform in any market, find a big upcoming industry event—conference, product release, new legislation—and align your messaging or product offerings around it. The organic interest from that event can flood onto your platform.

4. Lowering the Onboarding Friction

People were curious about Polymarket, but initial feedback was, “Uh, do I need to be a crypto genius to use this?” So the team quickly integrated simpler payment methods—credit card to USDC, eventually removing high transaction fees on Ethereum by moving to layer-2 solutions.

In plain English: they made it easy for non-crypto folks to jump in without doing a bunch of wallet wizardry. The simpler your product’s onboarding, the more first-time visitors you’ll convert.

5. Building Trust and Credibility

New marketplace. Real money. Regulatory gray area. That’s a trifecta of concern for would-be users. Polymarket handled it by being transparent about how markets were resolved and by leveraging public blockchain data so that people could literally see the funds.

Meanwhile, they snagged early backing from big-name investors, which gave them added credibility. Whenever a recognized figure or brand trusts you, it’s a subtle endorsement that reassures fence-sitters. This approach matters whether you’re offering a digital product or a B2B platform: when your “about” section showcases serious endorsements, skeptical visitors are more likely to give you a shot.

6. Nurturing the Core Community

In the early days, Polymarket didn’t spam 10,000 different bets or topics. They kept it tight—politics, major world events, some fun offbeat predictions. This condensed the small user base around a handful of markets, making the place look active instead of deserted.

You can apply this to any community: start with a narrow set of features or discussions, so your initial users aren’t scattered across 50 empty rooms. Focus is everything. Then, once you have momentum and trust, start branching out.

7. Turning Data into Marketing Fuel

One cunning advantage Polymarket had: when a big story broke—say, election results or major sports event outcomes—they could show off the real-time betting odds as “crowd wisdom.” Journos and bloggers love that stuff, and it gets media attention.

Any marketplace can do something similar: share aggregated trends or highlight unique insights your platform generates. If you’re a job board, publish interesting data about hiring trends. If you’re a travel marketplace, talk about the most-booked destinations of the month. People eat up data-driven content.

8. Scaling Without Breaking

Finally, once the user base started picking up, Polymarket made sure they could handle the volume—technically and socially. They had moderation plans in place to manage spammy or dubious markets. They also ramped up server capacity and user support. Nothing’s worse than seeing your big break turn into a meltdown because your product can’t handle the traffic.

9. Business Takeaways (No Crypto Degree Required)

Polymarket’s cold start solution is a masterclass in how to get your first user and scale:

• Be the first to create valuable content/offerings. Don’t wait for users to do the heavy lifting.

• Pick a high-interest event or angle. Relevance = engagement.

• Remove friction. Yes, even if it’s “impossible.” There’s always a way to simplify.

• Build trust. Show your face, bring in respected backers, be transparent.

• Keep it focused. A small group in a single channel looks more alive than scattered pockets everywhere.

• Leverage your data for marketing. People love stats and insights they can’t get elsewhere.

• Prepare for traction. Have a plan for scaling, so you don’t implode when the big moment comes.

Apply these principles, and your marketplace could dodge the dreaded “no users, no content” paradox. It’s not rocket science, but it sure feels like it if you don’t plan it out. Polymarket did, and the rest is history.

Want to Experiment with Programmatic SEO, Too?
If you’re thinking about supercharging your traffic, check out my guide on building a programmatic SEO website—no rocket science required. (Although a bit of hustle does help.)

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