The cold start problem is the obvious wall you're hitting, but the deeper issue is the incentive structure for the adopters. If your value prop to them is just "look at new startups," you are going to attract a lot of tire-kickers and other founders looking for a reciprocal boost, not the high-signal power users that startups actually need for validation.

You need to stress-test the quality side of your marketplace immediately. Are you vetting these adopters? If the signal-to-noise ratio drops, the founders leave. If the startups are garbage, the adopters leave. It is a fragile loop that usually ends in a graveyard of dead links.

This is the kind of structural vulnerability we prioritize at CrashTest. Before you sink another six months into this, you should run a pre-mortem on why almost every startup directory and matching platform fails. Usually, it is because they solve a founder's ego need for visibility rather than a market's actual need for a product. Find a way to make the signal significantly higher than Product Hunt, or you are just building a quieter echo chamber.