I spent $0 on marketing and got 1,200 website visitors - Here's my exact playbook
Three months ago, I launched my SaaS with zero followers and a $0 marketing budget. I had no choice but to get creative.
I tried everything the gurus recommended. Twitter threads? Posted for weeks to my 34 followers.
LinkedIn thought leadership? Crickets.
I was ready to give up.
Then I stopped trying to "build an audience" and started going where my users already were. That shift changed everything.
In 6 weeks, I drove 1,200 targeted visitors to my site without spending a single dollar. Here's what actually worked:
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Reddit comments (not posts): I spent 20 minutes daily answering real questions in 8 specific subreddits. Never pitched my product. Just helped people genuinely. This alone brought 680 visitors.
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SEO content that solved problems: I wrote 5 blog posts answering the exact questions my users Googled.
No fluff, just tactical solutions. Each post took 3 hours to write but brought consistent traffic.
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Community engagement: I showed up in Slack communities and Discord servers where founders hung out. Contributed value first, mentioned my tool second. Result: 290 visitors and actual conversations.
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What failed hard: Cold DMs on LinkedIn (2% response rate), generic Twitter threads (8 likes total), and posting in Facebook groups (got banned).
The biggest lesson? You don't need an audience. You need to be useful in the right places.
My question for you: If you've grown a startup with zero budget, what channel surprised you the most?
if you want to connect here is my Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/naik-pratham/
Did you focus narrowly or spread yourself across multiple platforms?
This post came up to me at a perfectly right time.
Loved your strategy, but please tell us how did you reach people to promote your product after contributing value to them. Thanks.
Glad it reached you at the right time 🙌
Honestly, I didn’t “promote” in the traditional sense.
After helping people in Reddit threads or communities, I’d only mention my product if it was a natural fit for their problem. something like, “I actually built a small tool that solves this, here’s how it works.”
That subtle, context-first approach worked way better than any hard pitch.
It’s slow at first, but people remember genuine help. Some even ended up sharing it themselves later.
How are you currently approaching your outreach? Would love to exchange notes.
Really interesting, I’m in the same stage right now, mostly trying to get early traction by commenting on Reddit threads. It’s been pretty quiet so far, so your post actually gives me hope that it’s not all for nothing.
Curious how you managed to get users from Reddit without mentioning your product directly? I’m finding a lot of my comments get removed even when I’m just trying to add value, not promote anything. The moderation there can be wild 😅
Yeah, Reddit mods can be brutal 😅 even if your intentions are good.
What worked for me was playing the long game. For the first couple of weeks, I didn’t mention my product at all. I just answered questions, gave examples, and even linked to other helpful resources (not mine).
Once I had a bit of comment history and trust, I casually reference my product only if it directly solved the issue being discussed and even then, without dropping a link most of the time.
Something like:
“I actually built something for this exact problem, happy to share what I learned if you’re interested.”
That line alone sparked DMs and profile clicks, which brought traffic naturally.
You are definitely on the right path.
If you didn't advertise your product on Reddit, how did Reddit users find out about it? And what exactly are we talking about? I would say that there are no universal strategies. It's quite possible that it worked in your specific case with your product, but it won't work in another.
You set your Reddit username to your company's name, you set the avatar to your company's logo and you add your website to your Reddit profile. Users visit your profile and from there they go to your website.
Yes they find value in your answer, they visit your profile and get your site ! its a weird way but they travel like this
Totally fair point! I agree there is no universal playbook. What worked for me might not translate 1:1 to someone else’s niche.
To answer your question: most Reddit traffic came indirectly. I never dropped links in comments. Instead, a few people checked my profile (where I had a short line about what I am building + my site link).
Some even DM me after ongoing discussions. That small trickle turned into steady traffic over time.
You are right, though context matters. My product solves workflow problems founders often discuss on Reddit, so it fits naturally into those conversations. For someone in a different niche, the approach might look completely different.
Appreciate all the feedback here, happy to share a few more details on what actually made this playbook work 👇
Reddit wasn’t about traffic at first. I treated it like user research — figuring out what problems people repeated across threads. Once I understood that, writing content (and later SEO blogs) became 10x easier.
SEO + Community = Compounding effect. The posts I wrote were based on real Reddit questions. When people searched the same terms later, my blog ranked and those readers already felt like I “got” their problem.
Profile funnel mattered more than links. I didn’t promote directly, but I optimized my Reddit profile bio and LinkedIn banner. People who resonated with my comments clicked through naturally.
Consistency beat virality. No single comment or post blew up. The 1,200 visitors came from daily habits 15–20 minutes of genuine engagement, every day, for 6 weeks.
Still refining the approach, but the main lesson stands: solve real problems in public, and curiosity drives traffic better than self-promotion.
Solid strategy, I loved it. If you don't mind can you share discord or slack link that you used?
Thanks, appreciate it! 🙌
Most of the Slack and Discord groups I joined were invite-only or community-driven ones for founders and indie makers like Indie Worldwide, Founder’s Forge, and a few niche ones around SaaS and productivity.
I didn’t join them to promote anything though just to hang out, share progress, and help others troubleshoot stuff. That’s what led to organic mentions and traffic later.
https://disboard.org/
Discord Communities:
SaaS University
Early Stage Founders
The SaaS Corner
SaaS & Tech Community
Slack Communities:
#Launch
Amateurpreneur
SaaS Alliance
Startups.com