"I hacked this together with the worst code you've ever seen and the server is crashing every 5 minutes, but a thousand people signed up today and usage is growing exponentially."
Hmm I assumed the opposite. The mass exodus of long time users who are pissed about the API changes won't happen until there is a destination that can handle the migration without servers going down. It will be interesting to see what happens.
Focusing on tech and scalability before getting users will just result in a well-engineered ghost-town. People would rather use something slow and buggy if that's where the activity is.
It's much more of a marketing and PR challenge than a tech challenge. Having a site that works well would be nice too, sure, but finding a way to get tons of users signed up (and keeping them engaged) is far more important.
"I hacked this together with the worst code you've ever seen and the server is crashing every 5 minutes, but a thousand people signed up today and usage is growing exponentially."