Right now I have about 100 users. If it gets to 200, and I get comments/suggestions/patches then I'll be happy.
Beyond that the idea of being popular/widely-used are things I've not considered. I find perl the language to be installed almost everywhere, and still very much in use, albeit not often promoted as such.
Is he trying to make a useful and widely used tool or promote a language? Those things might not necessarily go hand in hand.