How to get people to participate in a community when no one wants to go first?

I've been thinking about this lately and figured I'd ask people who've actually done it.

How do you get a new community going when there are only a handful of members and nobody wants to be the first person to post?

I was reading this guide on getting your first 100 community members: Guide: Get First 100 Community Members Quickly | Jatra Community

And it made me think that getting your first 100 members might actually be easier than getting your first 100 posts.

So what does the early-stage playbook actually look like?

Do you seed conversations yourself? Ask specific members to post? Create fake activity? Start with Q&As? Something else?

Would love to hear how people here got past that awkward "empty room" stage and started getting real conversations going.