First users for AI startups

Your first 500 users are already in a
Discord you're not in.

AI collapsed the cost of building. It did nothing for distribution – which is now the whole game. Torchly gets your product in front of the developer and builder communities where your users already gather, posted by the owner they trust. Pay per result. Launch it from your editor via MCP.

Per resultpay per signup, not impressions
MCPcreate campaigns from your editor
£500pilot, matched communities
The AI-era problem

Everyone can build now. Nobody can distribute.

A working product ships in a week, so more products than ever are chasing the same fixed pool of attention. The old answers have quietly stopped working: a Product Hunt launch is a one-day spike, ads reach strangers who have no reason to trust you yet, and "build your own community" is a year-long project sold as a growth tactic. Meanwhile the people who'd become your first users are already gathered – in a Discord, a Slack, a builder group – around the exact problem you solve.

// the spike

Launches don't compound

A big launch day feels like traction and evaporates by Friday. You need a channel that keeps returning users, not one you have to re-earn from scratch every time.

// the trust gap

Ads reach strangers

A feed ad interrupts someone who's never heard of you. An owner's post reaches someone who's opted into exactly your topic and trusts the person recommending it.

// the moat

Distribution is the moat

When the product is easy to copy, the durable advantage is being where your users already are. Embed that early and it compounds with every campaign you run.

How it works

Matched, approved, tracked – pay per result.

You don't manage communities or chase owners. You brief the campaign; the owner approves and posts it; you get tracked signups and pay only for those.

01

Describe your product

What it does, who it's for, and the result you'll pay for – a signup, an install, a beta join. From the dashboard, the API, or your editor via MCP.

02

Get matched communities

We surface the developer and builder communities that fit, with a reach estimate, so you see exactly where your campaign would run before you spend.

03

The owner approves & posts

The community owner reviews and posts your campaign in their own voice, clearly disclosed, with a tracked link. Nothing runs without their yes.

04

Pay per result

Clicks are tracked; signups come from your own data as the source of truth. A pilot is live within a week, and the downside is a small pilot fee, not a media budget.

Built for AI-native builders

Distribution as a tool call.

If you're building with Claude, Cursor, or any MCP-compatible environment, you don't need to open a browser tab to get users. Torchly ships an MCP server, so the whole flow lives where you already work.

Find

Find communities

Ask your AI assistant to find communities that match your product, and get scored results without leaving your editor.

Estimate

Estimate reach

Pull a reach and cost estimate for a set of communities before you commit a single pound of budget.

Launch

Create a campaign

Create the campaign as a tool call. It routes to owners for approval exactly like one made in the dashboard – same rails, same tracking.

FAQ

Straight answers for busy founders.

Anything else – hello@torchlyhq.com. A real person, usually me, replies.

We place your product inside the developer and builder communities where your users already are. The owner approves and posts it, and you pay per result – a signup or install – tracked by a unique link and your own dashboard. Pilots from £500.

A launch spikes for a day and fades; ads reach strangers who don't trust you yet. Community placement reaches people already gathered around your exact problem, with the endorsement of the owner they follow – and it compounds, because the same communities take your next campaign too.

Torchly ships an MCP server, so if you build with Claude, Cursor or any MCP-compatible tool, you can find matching communities, estimate reach, and create a campaign without leaving your editor. Distribution becomes a tool call in the same place you write the code.

Developer and AI-builder Discords and Slacks, indie-hacker and maker communities, and vertical niche groups. Every one is matched to your product and owner-approved, so you only run where your users actually are.

Pilots from £500 for a handful of matched communities, paid per result rather than per impression. It exists so you can check the numbers against your current channels before spending real budget.

Ship, then get users

Put it in front of the people already there.

Pilots from £500 Pay per result MCP-native
Submit a brief