“We created a small curated list where there would be like four products only every day and there would be a new product every day so essentially 12 products weekly and we had a good enough network to find 12 different brands that would give us some value in kind.”

Curated Scarcity Solves the Supplier Cold Start — 4 Products a Day Is Enough

Rather than trying to build an Amazon-style marketplace of thousands of products (which requires enormous supplier relationships before you have users), Sweatcoin launched with a tight daily rotation of 4 products — one new one each day. Getting 12 willing brands was achievable at near-zero scale. The scarcity also made the marketplace feel curated and urgent rather than overwhelming. Once user numbers grew, brands started queuing to be featured, inverting the supply-demand dynamic.