The help/FAQ page https://area51.stackexchange.com/faq has a lot of good info, but we have been seeing a lot of new proposals making the same mistakes that are not really addressed there.
Would it be helpful to collect a list of "Does and Don'ts"?
The top two that come to mind for me are: (my wording can probably use some wordsmithing.)
Don't create duplicate accounts to increase your followers count, it will go badly for your proposal
Do have 100 unique individuals who are interested in your proposal AND are willing to spend to time on other Stack Exchange sites learning how it works, this is the biggest challenge most new proposals face.