How Getting Kicked Out of Reddit Communities Led Me to Build SnagDump

A few months ago, I was deep in customer discovery for a completely different idea.

My ICP was realtors and e-commerce businesses. Standard early-stage stuff — find the people who'd use your product, talk to them, and validate before you build. So I did what most founders do. I went where my potential users already were. Subreddits, Facebook groups, niche forums. I showed up, introduced myself, and started asking questions.
It did not go well.

Most people were not happy to hear from me. Some were politely dismissive. Some were outright hostile. I got removed from a couple of communities entirely. And at first I took it personally, was my idea that bad? Was my approach wrong?

Then I started noticing something. It wasn't just me. Other founders in the customer discovery phase were posting about the exact same experience. Getting flagged, removed, and ignored. The frustration was everywhere.

So I stopped and asked myself — why are these communities reacting this way?
The answer was obvious once I put myself in their shoes.

These people joined a realtor subreddit to talk about real estate. They joined an e-commerce forum to solve e-commerce problems. They did not sign up to be research subjects for strangers building products they may never use or want. From their perspective, every founder sliding into their community with a survey or a "quick question" is an intrusion. And they're right.

The problem isn't that founders are asking. The problem is that they're asking in the wrong place.

That's when it clicked.

What if there was a place where people voluntarily posted their own frustrations? Where sharing a problem wasn't an accident — it was the entire point? Where founders could find real pain points without feeling like they were intruding, and everyday people could post frustrations knowing that someone might actually do something about them?

No cold outreach. No uncomfortable survey requests. No getting kicked out of communities that weren't built for this.

Just a dedicated space where both sides understand exactly what they're there for.

So I built SnagDump.

Here's how it works:

People post their everyday frustrations; we call them "snags", and posters are "snaggers". Things that don't work, gaps that shouldn't exist, problems that have needed fixing forever. The dentist who won't quote you upfront. The expense software has somehow gotten worse. The utility company that can't explain your bill.

Other people who share the same frustration hit "I have this too", signalling that the problem is real and maybe widespread, not just one person having a bad day.
Potential builders and founders - we call them Scouts - browse these snags as a stream of validated, real-world signals. They can filter by domain, WTP signal, relate count, and solution gap. When they find a problem worth solving, they can connect directly with people within that problem space who have indicated they are open to being contacted, or submit a product claim when they've built a solution that solves that problem.

Here, nobody feels harassed or out of place, because everyone who shows up knows exactly what SnagDump.com is for.

What I'd love from this community:

Indie Hackers was one of the first places I came to understand that building in public and validating before you build weren't just good ideas, they were survival skills. This community shaped how I think about product development.

So I'm not just posting for exposure. I genuinely want to know:

Does the core idea resonate with you? Have you had the same experience I had - trying to do customer discovery in communities that weren't built for it? And I would appreciate it if you could poke around SnagDump to see what lands, what's broken, and what's confusing. Is this a platform you think you'll want to use either as a Snagger or as a Scout?

Every piece of feedback gets read. Every honest critique makes it better.

[SnagDump — dump your snags, let Scouts find them → snagdump.com]