I saw this tween by Arian and I recognized that we were doing some of what he's alluding to. It sparked some other ideas as well so I thought I'd share a few tips from myself and some of my other VR Dev friends:

1. For games, get on itch.io, Steam, and App Lab (or any mix of them). For utility apps, get on App Lab.
2. If your app does not meet App Lab standards yet, you can use Sidequest for distribution to early testers, but be warned: it's a huge pain in the butt for users who aren't already set up with Sidequest.
3. Get onto the Meta Store as quickly as possible. They typically reach out when you have ~50k users and are adding 1,000/week.

Not at these numbers yet? Continue reading!

How to build up your userbase

1. If App Lab is your plan, pick a very unique, short, and easy to remember name because otherwise users will not be able access your App Lab page. Search won’t surface it.
2. Once on App Lab, make heavy use of "Short Links" feature on developer.oculus.com and figure out what distribution channels work.
3. Add you own usage analytics to your app (Meta's are slow to update and not customizable.) Figure out what makes users stay and what makes them leave.
4. Create a community meeting place for your users (Discord, Subreddit, etc). Even better if you can make your app the place they come to meet.
5. Put a video showing users how to find your app on App Lab/itch.io/steam/etc at the end of every piece of video content you produce. Put QR codes to your app lab page in your static picture content.

What gets you more users

• Making an app people want.
• Posting a lot of content.
• Adding features to your app that encourages users to make and post content about your app.
• Beautiful visuals shown off well in video.
• TikToks with > 100k views.
• Youtubers making videos about your app organically (not paid).
• Placement on Meta Store.
• People organically posting about your app on Reddit and TikTok.
• Ads on more specific quest games lists (expensive though.)

What DOES NOT get you more users

• Sidequest ads.
• Tweets on x.com, even if they do really well. (At least not directly.)
• Paying "VR Youtubers" to make videos about your app.
• Instagram/Facebook ads.
• Adding more features to your product while ignoring. distribution/marketing and hoping word of mouth saves you.
• Studios-turned-publishers who promise they can get you on the Meta Store.
• Posting desperate content to Reddit.

What else you should do if you're a serious VR dev

• Apply to join the XR Hackers forum
• Join the Fluid Discord (where you can ask me questions)
• Submit your app to the SFVR.com Apps List.