How Did Kirill Zubovsky Get Designers Onto Scoutzie Before It Could Accept Work?

Before Scoutzie had an upload button, Kirill Zubovsky emailed about 500 designers, said he was building a showcase for mobile design, and asked them to join. A couple of hundred said yes. Designers sent zip files by email and he loaded the files into the database by hand. The bet was mobile, when few designers would touch phones and the web still felt like the safe skill. One designer wrote that Twitter was full of Scoutzie, that he and his wife did only mobile work, and that the portfolios were strong and international, just as Dribbble was starting to show phone design. Zubovsky recruited the users, and saw the demand, before Scoutzie could accept the files on its own.