The traditional path a startup takes is building a product (MVP or not), then outreach to find the right audience. This writer discusses a counterintuitive process of building an audience first, and then building the product (“audience-first products”):
Having an audience will give you a unique perspective on the world. You’ll receive instant, high-quality feedback on the ideas you share. People are taught to hunt down interesting people, ideas, and opportunities. But masters of the Internet attract them. Sharing ideas attracts like-minded people, who double as a feedback loop to make you smarter and more interesting.
It also has this advantage:
If you have a built-in audience, you don’t need to raise money. If you write well about a common and specific problem, Google will send you lots of free traffic.
The writer makes it clear that this is more appropriate for building bootstrapped companies with focused audiences, than those that increasingly use capital as a moat. Of course, once you have a product and an audience that finds in it real value, you can always scale.