How I automated Reddit research without external tools/APIs
I was going through Reddit threads trying to validate a product idea.
Quickly realised doing it manually does not scale. The signal is there, but digging it out takes too much time
At first, tried a few popular Reddit marketing tools. Besides being insanely expensive. They track massive keyword sets across sub-reddits and the result is way more noise than signal.
Staying true to my indie-hacker spirit, next, I set-up my own pipeline. Wanted to keep costs low - without no hefty API bills or a larger model eating up my laptop's real estate. Went with Qwen-2.5 1.5B locally. Honestly it worked better than I expected for filtering and grouping. But fails with deeper reasoning tasks.
Spent a day trying to optimise the prompting strategy, but it was an architectural ceiling. So, I took a step back and rethought the strategy. Turned out what I needed was finite world classification, not open-ended reasoning.
Today is day 4. The feeds finally feel usable. Less noise. More threads that actually feel worth opening.
Still early, but it’s starting to feel like the system is pointing in the right direction.
Curious how others here handle Reddit for ideation or validation.
Still doing it manually, using tools, or something else entirely?
Would genuinely love to hear.
The useful shift here is “finite world classification, not open-ended reasoning.”
That is probably the real product insight. Most Reddit research tools treat the problem as monitoring more keywords, but founders do not need more threads. They need fewer, better-classified signals: pain, urgency, competitor frustration, buying intent, repeated wording, and whether a thread is actually worth opening.
If this becomes a product, I would avoid positioning it as just Reddit automation. That makes it sound like another scraping or marketing utility. The stronger frame is market signal discovery for founders.
Exirra .com would fit that direction well because the product is really about pulling clean signal out of noisy conversations, not just searching Reddit faster. The name gives it more room if you later expand beyond Reddit into forums, HN, reviews, support communities, or competitor mentions.
The system sounds early, but the direction is strong because you are solving the part founders actually hate: separating useful demand signals from endless noise.
Exactly what I am discovering too. If anyone wants to give it a try, might consider turning it into a product or a service.
That makes sense.
I would probably test it as a service before building the full product. Something like: “I’ll find 20 high-signal Reddit threads where your ICP is already showing pain, competitor frustration, or buying intent.”
That is easier to sell than another research dashboard, and it would quickly show whether founders pay for the classified signal itself.
If that works, then the product direction becomes clearer: not Reddit search, but demand-signal discovery across messy founder/customer conversations.
That is where the naming starts to matter. The service can stay descriptive early, but if you turn it into a real product, I would avoid locking the brand around Reddit only. Exirra fits better as the broader signal-intelligence layer if you decide to take it seriously.