5 days from launch with 2 paying users, $69 in ad spend, and a resolved Reddit ban. Here's what I'm actually doing between now and Wednesday
A week ago I posted here about getting banned from Reddit mid-launch. The short version: I launched ChannelScout on April 19, three Reddit posts got auto-removed, my account got locked, then permabanned. I cried about it. Twice.
Today: account is mostly unbanned (ads run, organic posts still get filtered), I have 2 paying users, my tagline is locked, Kevin William David confirmed as my hunter, and I'm 5 days out from a real Product Hunt launch.
Sharing the real numbers because the polished version is less useful than the honest one. Here's what I'm actually doing.
Running Reddit ads, learning out loud. $69 spent across 3 video ad variants (underdog framing, pain-question framing, token-anxiety framing). 27 clicks total, 0 conversions yet. All three messages performing within 6% of each other after I called Ad D the "decisive winner" on day 1 (I was wrong, day-2 data crushed that read). Cold $19 product on Reddit needs about 100-200 clicks for a first conversion. I'm at 27.
Soft launching while paid traffic warms up. Product is live, BetaList listing dropped, Uneed listing live, dev.to drip running through June 4. I made my own $9.50 test purchase yesterday to validate the entire chain (Stripe → webhook → pixel → CAPI → email → report) and dogfooded the marketing workflow to write 6 SEO guides on solo dev launches. That same dogfooding caught 3 product bugs my tests had missed. Fixed all three same-day.
The goal for Wednesday isn't #1. It's to have honest conversations with founders who've been in the same spot, ship the product to people who'll actually use it, and learn whether the bet works.
If you're 2-4 weeks out from your own launch and want to compare notes on the pre-launch grind, drop it below. The honest stories are the ones that actually help.
Sarah (channelscout.co. Also Stamp'd at adventure-seeker.com if you're curious about the passion project I'm trying to fund.)
