Even though I've mentioned it a few times in IRC + google plus and collected a few emails, I don't want to spam them and piss off the users who don't want to see it. Thanks.
First, have quality content that you are genuinely interested in writing. Be detailed but also with a human touch. Keep it interesting. Cite real stories if you can
Use a good newsletter software (Mailchimp, Aweber etc) and make it easy for a user to give you their email address. Make it clear why you are collecting their email and what will you do with it. If someone is genuinely interested in your stuff, they will gladly subscribe
Start with a very simple Blog template where the focus is on your content and nothing fancy. i personally like 2 column with the right/left column having an About section and a newsletter form below it. thats it.
One trick with blogs is that you can auto post them to your social networks like fb, twitter etc. If you use wordpress, there is a great plugin called "SNAP" that stands for Social Network Auto Poster. Check it out.
Add Google analytics to your homepage. Create some "goals" and see how users behave on your site.
Initially, focus on writing quality stuff and forget about optimizing on google, SEO etc. It will happen with good quality content for the most part.
Rinse and repeat. There is no magic wand but this should give you a pretty good start.
Lastly, make sure you know what to do with the collected email addresses. Do you have a campaign setup ? Do you have autoresponders ? If you don't know what these are, read about them. Engaging your users who could be potential customers is a daunting task but also fun if you do it right.
One additional question: What kind of success have you personally had with following steps like these?
There's no guarantee of when they'll show up (unless you pay) but there are the most common ways to get your pre-launch startup in front of an audience who is interested in seeing new product everyday.
;-)
I've always been a marketer first, so I don't have any personal advice for overcoming this. I would advise you to look at some of the biggest brands, both corporate and personal, and look at their marketing strategies. You'll find that each brand, especially in its early stages, consistently market(ed|s) itself in ways that you might deem "spammy". A frequent example is Airbnb -- they pulled their listings from craigslist before they had both sides of the rental market. How else were they supposed to get customers?
Is that spamming? Is it spamming to promote your product? To engage in tactics that make it better for your users? If airbnb didn't use craigslist to acquire early users, it likely would never have gained traction, and nobody would use airbnb today. That would suck! Ask any airbnb user if they would be happy if airbnb was gone. They will probably answer no. Therefore they are happier because airbnb exists, but airbnb only exists because of the "spammy" tactics its founders used in its early stages.
Is "spamming" wrong when it benefits your product/brand, and makes it better for your users (ultimately the only ones you care about)? Do you care what people think if they aren't going to use your product or subscribe to your brand? Why should you?
Once you realize that every popular brand goes through some kind of growth hacking and/or marketing phase, you can accept it as the status quo requirement for initial promotion. Then you have to realize that a personal brand is no different than a corporate one. All the same branding rules apply.
Look at patio11, Brendan Dunn, Nathan Barry. They are two HN power users. They have followings of people who upvote every post they write, who subscribe to their email lists, and who buy their products. What do they all have in common? PERSONAL BRANDING. They aren't afraid to brag about themselves, they aren't afraid to ask for your email, and they aren't afraid to pitch themselves to you as a product. They understand their personal brands are valuable assets and they treat them as such. If you want to compete on the same plane, you need to engage in the same tactics.
Self promotion is nothing to be ashamed of. Everybody does it. It's the online analogue of self-confidence. Every leader needs to first be confident in himself/herself, before anyone else can be confident in him/her. Leaders need people to be confident in them. Therefore leaders need to be confident in themselves. Self-confidence begets self-promotion, and both feed on each other. Act confident, give people a reason to follow you, and build a following. As your following grows, so will your confidence. It's a positive feedback cycle. Be confident, promote yourself.
Congratulations on being on the receiving end of my daily diatribe! :) Hopefully something I said helps you. Just put yourself out there.