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๐Ÿ“ˆ We raised $500K pre-seed for our Reddit Marketing Tool

Hey there!
I'm more than happy to share with you that we raised $500,000 pre-seed investment for Howitzer.co!

It passed a year since I validated the idea here, on Indie Hackers, and wrote the first line of code on GitHub.
*It was landing page validation, without writing a line of production code


๐ŸŒฑ Now we are a team of 6 people, we have our own office, raised seed money, and rolling out Howitzer 2.0 - advanced version of the tool.
Howitzer's office

You can read more about this investment:

If you have any questions regarding the tool, tips & tricks on raising pre-seed/seed investment, advice on talking and negotiating with investors, etc. - I'll be more than happy to answer them!
Also, feel free to connect with me on Twitter or LinkedIn!

Cheers! ๐Ÿน

  1. 5

    Wouldn't be a complete tech startup office setup without the traditional bean bag! ๐Ÿ’ช๐Ÿฝ๐Ÿš€ Cheers to growth๐Ÿฅ‚

    1. 2

      Hahah, the crew just loves them (uses them for "pillow-fighting" mostly) xD

      Thanks Romaine, wish you a ton of success! ๐Ÿฅ‚

  2. 4

    Hey Nikola, congratulations on your round! We have raised our pre-seed round a few months back, so I know that it's a very good feeling after all your hard work.

    Good luck with a business ๐Ÿ‘Š

    1. 1

      Thanks a lot Matej!
      Wish you all the best, and great success with StreamBee!

  3. 3

    I remember seeing the idea validation posts a year ago.
    1 year later: a seed investment!
    Congrats!

    1. 1

      Thanks!
      Yeah, it was a wild year :)

  4. 2

    Hey Nikola!

    1. I tested Howitzer like 3 months ago, had a great experience and mentioned it in my NL. Congrats on this idea and on the execution, it's really good.

    2. I'm actually surprised you decided to raise. I seemed to me like the perfect product to keep bootstrapping for a few years and sell for a pretty high price. Was the cash necessary to keep moving forward?

    1. 1

      Hey Tom, thanks a lot! Glad you like it! :)

      Yeah, we first thought to go completely bootstrapped, but our vision grew a lot, we saw a pretty good trend we can "ride", and that's why we decided to be a VC-backed company.
      Plus the VCs are extremely good guys, with ton of experience and resources, so this partnership may be something really great on the long run

  5. 1

    Hey great progress so far. Happy for your fundraise. One question. As you maybe using reddit old PM which is supported by APIs but not new reddit chat feature which has no API for now. What if reddit blocks old PM API's in future? Even if you bypass this restriction using web automation then do you still think this business model is feasible in the long run?

    1. 1

      Hey Alok, thanks a lot!
      Yes, currently we're using the old Reddit Direct Messages for now, but we're adding the new Chat functionality too (stay tuned for more).

      Yes, regarding the complete business model, I think it is feasible, having the current infrastructure and team.

  6. 1

    Congratulations! I have no experience using Reddit, but this seems like a great way to kickstart my upcoming startup presence there. Connecting on Twitter right now.

    1. 1

      Thanks Agustin, will reply there! :)

  7. 1

    I took note of this ๐Ÿ‘Œ

    1. 1

      Thanks! :)

  8. 1

    How the heck? I was one of your first clients. Congratz!

    The product is good, but isn't it a very high-risk investment from the investor's perspective?
    Reddit can make some changes to the Reddit messaging and your business is done.

    1. 1

      Thanks Martins, I remember you! :D

      It may look like a high risk investment, but I think we've thought on this and I believe we've solved this to some extend (can't talk a lot about this thing & the solution)... Stay tuned! :)

  9. 1

    Congratulations. We follow for new news

    1. 1

      Thank you!

  10. 1

    High five @nklvlk! Kudos on this round. I observe your success with admiration and envy, it is very inspiring, especially that I'm also building a marketing startup. To be honest, I think we even might have some cooperation possibilities - are you interested in sharing thoughts? Check us on https://digitalfirst.ai or contact me at [email protected].
    Meanwhile, best of luck while scaling!

    1. 1

      Thanks a lot Lena!
      Sure, I would love to connect! Wrote you an email!

      Good luck with DigitalFirst.ai, and looking forward to talking soon!

  11. 1

    Wow, what a journey... Hope you the best in the future. A quick question: What are the elements that your investors for example paid the most attention to? Any tips will help too.

    1. 1

      Thanks!

      Here are some tips:

      1. If you don't have traction and sales, nobody would talk to you
      2. After they validate that there's market for your product idea, they question if you are able to execute it, and "Why you?"
      3. The team is crucial (i.e. are you fully dedicated to your startup, your passion, your synergy with the team mates, etc.)
      4. One of the main questions are: "Could you build and manage a company?"
      1. 1

        Thanks for taking the time to answer my comment. Really great insights ๐Ÿ™Œ

        1. 1

          No problem! Good luck! :)

  12. 1

    Congrats Nikola! Nice to see your idea catching acceleration money! I do hope you guys get to keep the company fresh and innovative as you grow! Your round gives me two amazing insights: 1) Reddit is an untapped source for "real" leads and 2) IH proves once again its power and superiority when it comes to validating ideas, growing an idea, and executing on it. I've just sent you a quick LinkedIn request, I would like for us to be in sync as things progress and discuss.

    1. 1

      Thanks Colin!
      Agree with both of the insights! :)

      Thanks for adding me on LinkedIn!

  13. 1

    Congratulations, Nikola, and good luck!

    My team and I are sure to get your product a try, because we don't have enough skills on Reddit marketing. Hope it will kickstart our Reddit presence.

    1. 1

      Thank you Jose!

      Sure, feel free to reach out if you have any questions! :)

  14. 1

    Nicely done! And your landing page is great too!

    1. 1

      Thanks a lot Sean! :)
      Glad you like it!

  15. 1

    Nice work, mind sharing how you intend to use the cash?

    1. 1

      Thanks Farouq!
      Mostly expanding the team (salaries) + spend them on growth.

  16. 1

    @nklvlk Congrats on funding! Could you talk about the tech stack that you used to build the app? Also are you able to disclose any information about the valuation?

    1. 1

      Hey Mike, thanks a lot! :)
      The tech stack is Angular / ASP .NET Core / PostgreSQL; multiservice architecture, so we have a lot of services written in Python and Node JS.

      Sorry, we cannot disclose the company valuation

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        Not a problem, and thank you for the reply. Are you looking for more funding? I'm trying to get into an open scouting program, and I would like to put your company in the funding database if you are interested.

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          Currently we're not interested in raising more money, but let's talk in 12 months, once we're potentially ready for Series A! :)

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            Great! Please do reach out to me when you are ready. I tried to DM you on Twitter, but I think they aren't open. Not sure if I can message you on IH either.

            1. 1

              Hm, weird... My Twitter DMs are open actually.
              Try to contact me at [email protected]

  17. 1

    Wow! This is really inspiring coz a Reddit tool getting a $500k seed investment tells something about how damn good the tool is, Nikola we wrote a blog on July featuring 8 -9 reddit tools.

    Would love to feature Howitzer too. Let's DM in LinkedIn.
    All the best mate :)

    1. 1

      Thanks a lot, Achyuthan!
      Sure! :)

  18. 1

    Congratulations Nikola. Keep growing. Because Reddit ๐Ÿ”ฅ

    1. 2

      Thank you Atul!

      Yeah, Reddit is totally fire, and I it looks like it'll be much hotter channel in the upcoming period! :)

      1. 1

        Most welcome, Nikola.

        Let's see Reddit's tactic to acquire more users.

  19. 1

    Wow congrats man on the raise. Great product and beautiful design btw.

    1. 1

      Thanks a lot Tosh! :D

  20. 1

    I remember seeing the landing page feedback post :D good job y'all!

    1. 1

      Thanks a lot! Glad you follow us from the beginning haha :D

  21. 1

    Congrats! I remember using your tool a few months ago and got nothing out of it tbh.

    1. 1

      Thanks Albert.
      The tool was in a pretty early stage few months ago. I'm sure that if you give it a shot again, you'll be pretty happy with the results.

      Plus, we're working on it in full force, so new features and new updates coming really soon! :)

  22. 1

    Amazing, nice work!!

    1. 1

      Thank you Scott! :)

    1. 1

      Thanks a lot, Darko!

  23. 1

    Congrats! Thats huge!

    1. 1

      Thank you Ari! :)

  24. 1

    Congratulations Nikola!
    I've been following you for some time and I'm happy for you! Howitzer sounds like a game changer

    1. 1

      Thank you! :)

  25. 1

    This comment was deleted 2 years ago.

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    This comment was deleted 2 years ago.

    1. 2

      Thanks Rauno!
      Mostly expanding the team (salaries) + spend them on growth.

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