I really like Dan and have been following his stuff since the mid-2000s, but it's hard to apply this advice generally.

#2 and #3 are only effective if you're Dan Cederholm. He already had a reputation which put him in a very luxurious position to essentially choose his first users and have them actually use it. The same goes for #3 – imagine if all of the "people you want on your platform" got tshirts and postcards from every startup that wanted them?