Welcome!

Based on my observation from the early days, she just posted and posted and posted and posted for a few months until there's organic content coming from other redditor, while on the main sub every removed post will be directed to r/msians, which is why some people single her out with their mod hate at that time.

I messaged her a few days ago and she confirmed that's how she build it from the ground up. She also have alternate advice, which is to run it like a business, but without involving money.

So from the beginning i simply posted and posted and posted while engage with almost everyone in their conversation, hopefully in long terms people will slowly gravitate toward this community because it doesn't looks dead. Then when there's sizeable amount of user i plan to run some event which can be crossposted to reddit. My opinion on the other comment are all based on my observation of r/msians and r/msianfood, both build from the ground up using the same method.

Though i must admit running a satellite community is tougher than building a new sub, but i think it's worth a try.