hi David..i don't think that's a good way to develop a following..medium is not actually the place to develop a loyal audience..here it's "article" centric rather than "author" centric..so the only focus should be on articles...here your article can go viral even if you have 50 followers or end up with 100 views even if you have 40k followers...no one really cares who you are ...they just want to read good articles and be done with it..that's why follower to read ratio is so low here...many people may follow but not necessarily read you...if you follow even a 100 hundred people that's 200 articles in a week because everyone publishes at least 1 or 2 a week..no human can read that many...so most of your views and money will come from people who dont follow you..random readers....you can form relationships here sure..but that's not needed...you never have to interact with anyone or follow anyone and still make a shit ton of money...like tim dennings...but yes what u say kinda makes sense because of the new follower requirement...but that's a number you can easily reach if you publish consistently for 2-3 months..i am at almost 100 and it's not even 40 days..i checked out your profile and i could see that you are also new here and already near 100...my suggestion would be to use medium as a practice ground..hone your writing skills to get clicks..because this platform provides instant feedback...i just wrote 14 articles and i already can understand a little of what works and what doesn't to get eyeballs on your work..if you want to develop a meaningful following my top pick would be twitter..experiment with your writing here..and thanks for reading David ...cheers..