Coders + Creators: How We’re Building Ting
Startups need just two things: people to make the product, and people to get the users.
Hey everyone,
This one’s about how we’re growing the team.
It feels timely because lately a lot of people have been saying you can scale to millions with a tiny team. I don’t know that yet - we’ve only just started - but I can share how we’re thinking about it and why.
I can’t remember where I first read it (probably one of Paul Graham’s YC posts), but the idea stuck:
Startups really need just two things: people to make the product, and people to get the users.
I love frameworks this simple.
At big companies things abstract out. Vertical teams, horizontal teams, “continuous improvement” teams (yes, I had one at adidas). A friend who just joined a company in hyper-growth told me they’re now layering in planning teams, ops teams, efficiency teams. Necessary, but also a reminder: complexity creeps in fast.
Right now, we’re keeping it simple. Ting is being built on two axes: coders and creators.
One, because it sounds cool. Two, because - at least in my humble opinion - it’s exactly where tech and culture are today.
Coders: making it “wow, this works”
Coders are the people who make the product.
Despite what people say, vibe coding your way to a durable product is still a stretch. I learned that the hard way - lost at least a month trying to build solo - before I found my cofounder and CTO, Mariana.
Since then, things started clicking. The product finally feels more and more like: “wow, this works.” And honestly, there’s no better growth engine than a product that does what it promises.
Advice if you’re building: Don’t just “get a CTO.” Let them be a CTO. That means planning sprints, forcing ruthless prioritisation, and clarifying what not to build. I used to think a CTO was just someone who shipped what I couldn’t. But the real value is how they shape the roadmap and push you to think in systems, not hacks.
With LLMs this matters even more. They’re not just an efficiency layer - they let you reimagine the whole stack. A great partner will ask: “What if this isn’t a scheduling tool, but an adaptive agent that negotiates time?”
Early on, we made the mistake of trying to “micro-manage” the LLM with endless edge-case prompts. Logical, but it strangled the product. Now, with a proper evaluation framework and smarter agent model, we can diagnose issues and fix them without hacking around.
PSA: We’re hiring a backend engineer right now to double down on our inbox-first approach (not a front-end platform). Link here.
Creators: getting users and attention
Even the best product with the slickest growth loop still needs users. That’s where creators come in.
Creators trade in attention - our last scarce resource. They know the right hooks, formats, and ways to capture imagination. Without them, even the sharpest product gets lost in the noise.
I see plenty of solid scheduling tech out there. But I also see marketing so vanilla it never connects with the algorithm - and therefore never gets seen.
This is another reason we’re building Ting: our time is precious, and bringing people together is worth fighting for. If we can save time and make meetings happen, we’re doing something useful.
Advice if you’re building: Don’t aim for “clever,” aim for scroll-stopping. Forget puns. Ask: would someone DM this to a friend or screenshot it for Slack? That’s the bar.
When I ran global social for TikTok, we pushed 1bn impressions a month across TikTok, Reels, and Shorts. We knew a video’s chances in the first few seconds. Same rule applies to startups - if your launch tweet doesn’t trigger a visceral haha / wtf / damn, it won’t travel.
Even at Ting, I’ve caught myself writing copy that was witty but totally forgettable. The stuff that works isn’t just clever - it’s the kind that makes someone stop mid-scroll and think: “Did they really just say that?” or “That’s actually fun.”
We can’t fight on scale (yet). But we can punch way above our weight by having the most fun making content - and leaning into our genuine love for the (still undefeated) internet.
If you’re struggling to get your product seen, here’s a simple checklist from years of short video development:
When someone scrolls into your video, do they instantly see something they care about? Feed life has trained us to make split-second choices - stay or swipe. Our intuition is brutal.
Once they’ve stopped, what keeps them hooked? A clear promise, a story, or just relentless momentum. There are endless arcs you can borrow: put the best bit right at the start (reverse trailer), or frame it like a story time - we’ve loved a good beginning, middle, and end since childhood.
And finally: does the video carry them all the way to the end? Completion and replays are algorithm gold. To the computer, that’s the simplest signal that your content is worth surfacing.
PSA: We’re hiring a video creator to help us make insane, diabolical videos and grow the Ting community. Link here.
Why taste connects both
I think coders and creators are connected by one thing: taste.
As tech becomes more accessible, what wins isn’t just raw functionality - it’s how good it feels to use, how it conforms to the user, and how well it shows up where we actually spend time: social feeds, communities, forums.
That’s what Ting is about: software that bends to human behaviour. People don’t say “Tuesday 2–3pm GMT.” They say “after lunch” or “when I land.” Calendars hate that. Humans live like that. Taste is building tech that translates messy, human input into something machines can handle - without making the human feel wrong.
Where we’re at now
Of course, this is timestamped to today:
~1,000 users signed up
300 invites sent
75 meetings booked
Almost 40 active users
But I don’t see us straying far from this “coders + creators” philosophy as we grow.
At the end of the day, building a company is always a game of:
Making something amazing
Making sure people actually find it
And right now, that means coders and creators.
Thanks for reading.
-Dan
Chief Ting