From 0 to 17 users in 12 days.

Quick stats. 12 days of marketing Fenly (Chrome translation extension). 93 installs. 17 weekly active users at peak.

First users tend to come from niche subreddits. For my product specifically, that meant r/EnglishLearning, r/digitalnomad, r/Upwork, r/remotework. Places where the actual translation problem lives.

The honest backstory. I didn't target these subs initially. I got banned from r/languagelearning on Day 5 for mentioning Fenly in a reply to someone's question. To Reddit mods, a helpful answer and a promotional one look the same when the product is yours. That forced me to find other communities where the user lives. The niche subs ended up being the entire funnel.

The mechanic that worked.

No links in comments. Just substantive answers to real questions in those threads. If someone liked an answer, they'd click my profile out of curiosity. The Fenly link in the bio did the rest. That was the entire path from cold to install.

What didn't work as direct acquisition.

Threads stayed at 15 views per post and got paused. Product Hunt daily commenting targeted other founders, not users, so also paused. Twitter as a conversion channel proved too slow because the algorithm needs early engagement signals I haven't built yet. Twitter stayed in rotation but for slow personal brand work, not direct conversion.

LinkedIn and IH still in rotation for different reasons. LinkedIn brings a secondary stream of sign-ups. IH brings peer feedback that improved the product but doesn't drive users directly. Different functions per channel.

Honest leftovers.

The install to active gap is 1 in 5. 93 installs, 18 activations. Onboarding friction matters more than reach at this stage.

17 active users isn't a destination. It's the point where the playbook starts to repeat.

Reddit ban risk is real. Value-first commenting only. Direct promo gets killed fast.

What channel ended up driving users for you that wasn't part of your original plan?

My product - Fenly.me