Start with no follows, zero, and make the UX100% focussed on helping newcomers to onboard their own friends, family members, etc.

As part of the flow show all the neat ways they can interact with people they *already know* on Nostr (especially zaps). An entirely different onboarding concept, and a lot of work to get right.

And create some temporary bots/placeholders to show what the feed looks like when populated (and make it clear they are illustrative bots). Don't use Nostr elites for this. And hide all trending lists. Trending lists must be proactively turned on somewhere in some setting.

Problem is this. The existing community (nice as most well-known members are) is scaring new people away, surfacing it in onboarding in any way is a net negative for growth (just look at retention numbers). I'd imagine 9 out of 10 newcomers feel very much like they've walked into the wrong bar. New communities will only spring up when people are comfortable, and the existing community makes too many people uncomfortable, ergo exposing the existing community to newcomers is detrimental to the growth of new communities, which is what Nostr needs most of all.