How I grew a startup perks platform to 2,000 users purely through Reddit
A year ago I was a 25-year-old founder from Morocco with no marketing budget and a fresh idea: build a perks platform where early-stage founders could access hundreds of verified software credits, discounts, and exclusive offers in one place. No VC backing. No paid acquisition. Just a product and a plan to figure out distribution.
Today SaaSOffers.tech has 500+ verified perks, 2,000+ signups, a newsletter with 300+ subscribers, and $35K in cumulative revenue all driven by zero ad spend.
Here's exactly what worked.
1. Reddit was the entire unlock
I didn't stumble into Reddit growth I engineered it. I found subreddits where my target users actually lived. Then I stopped thinking like a marketer and started thinking like a community member.
The rule I followed was simple: provide real value first, mention the product last (or not at all). I'd write posts answering genuine questions about saving money on tools, share breakdowns of which perks were actually worth claiming, and occasionally drop the platform link when it was directly relevant.
The posts that exploded were always the ones that gave away free, specific, actionable information not the ones that pitched.
2. I built the product to market itself
Every page on SaaSOffers is built with SEO in mind. Perks pages, alternatives pages, compare tools, a blog all of it creates surface area for organic search. I'm not a marketer by training but I treated every feature as a potential traffic channel.
I also built an affiliate program directly into the platform. Instead of paying for ads, I let users who genuinely loved the product spread it for me. Every affiliate has an incentive (30$) to share it within their own communities, networks, and newsletters which means SaaSOffers gets distribution in places I'd never reach on my own, at zero upfront cost.
3. Partnerships over paid ads
Instead of spending on ads I invested time into partnership conversations with companies like DigitalOcean, Intercom, and Cloudvisor. Getting a perk listed by a reputable provider gives you their audience, their trust.
The key lesson: founders at these companies respond well to direct, no-fluff outreach. Skip the pitch deck. One honest paragraph explaining the mutual upside works better than a five-slide PDF.
4. Distribution beats virality
I cross-posted content to Medium, dev.to , Quora, and LinkedIn. Not to go viral just to be consistently present across the places founders browse. Most posts got modest engagement but they kept new users discovering the platform every week without me doing anything new.
What I'd do differently
I'd build the email list faster. The newsletter has 300+ subscribers now but I started capturing emails too late. If I'd put a proper lead magnet on the site from day one I'd have double that number by now. Every week without a list is a week of traffic that disappears.
Where things stand now
We're on a freemium model with a premium tier at $79/year and actively pushing toward $10K MRR. The platform has a referral program, an affiliates program, an accelerators directory, and an application tracker all built to retain users once they sign up, not just acquire them.
If you're building something and have zero budget for ads, Reddit + SEO + direct partnerships is a playbook that genuinely works. It's slower than paid but the users you get are more qualified and the compounding effect is real.
Happy to answer any questions — drop them below.
SaaSOffers.tech — a startup perks platform that helps founders access tools like AWS credits, Notion, HubSpot, and other software deals to reduce costs when building a startup.
2,000 users from Reddit alone is a strong proof point - and perks/deals is one of the verticals where Reddit's community trust works in your favor rather than against you. No one suspects a deal aggregator of being self-promotional.
The pattern that makes Reddit work for some products and fail for others: does your product benefit the community that's talking about it, or are you extracting value from their attention? Perks platforms are almost always net positive for the subreddit - the community gets tangible savings.
For solopreneurs specifically, Reddit distribution requires a system to track which subreddits were posted, what got traction, and when to re-engage. Without that, you end up re-posting in the same communities on the wrong cadence and getting flagged as spam.
I've been building a Solopreneur OS in Notion with a CRM-like table that tracks distribution channels by platform, post date, and response. Makes it much easier to see which subreddits are high-signal vs. which have gone cold.
Which subreddits drove the bulk of the 2,000 - was it concentrated in 2-3 communities or spread wide?
"Distribution beats virality" is the line that stuck. Most founders I talk to are chasing one big HN or Twitter moment, but the compounding effect you describe (modest engagement, new users every week, without doing anything new) is actually worth more because it doesn't require brilliance every week.
The subreddit targeting question is where most people fail. They post to r/startups or r/entrepreneur because those are big, but the signal-to-noise ratio is terrible. The real unlock is finding the 3-5 niche subs where your specific ICP actually hangs out and posts real problems, not just other founders pitching their own stuff.
One question on the SEO-as-architecture approach: did you build the comparison/alternatives pages from day one, or layer them on later? We're debating whether to ship a minimal MVP first or bake the distribution surface area in from the start. The retrofitting cost is real, but so is the time-to-market tradeoff.
Love the transparency here, especially the point about Reddit: 'provide real value first, mention the product last'.
The 'built the product to market itself' approach resonates a lot. I'm trying something similar with my SaaS, Caiu (an automated Pix billing tool for Brazilian microbusinesses). We built a couple of free tools to capture high-intent SEO traffic before asking them to sign up for the main product. Seeing how you treated every feature (like alternatives pages) as a potential traffic channel is super validating.
Your point about regretting not building an email list sooner is a great warning. Curious about your fix for this: Did you end up creating a specific lead magnet to capture those emails (like a 'Top 10 Hidden Perks' cheat sheet), or are you just relying on a standard newsletter opt-in?
If you had some marketing budget, how would you have used it to accelerate things?
2k through Reddit is the aspiration, here's my honest data from ~6 months of trying with a consumer product:
- 17 posts across 8 subs
- Best: 60 up, 12 comments, on a niche technical sub
- Worst: 0 up, 24 comments, 0.33 ratio (crushed) on a hostile media-server sub
- Cross-posting the same title to 4 subs same day consistently cratered 3 of 4, presumably algorithm deprioritization
Small niche + technical framing won. Big saturated subs went nowhere. What was the subreddit mix that drove the 2k for you, and how did you vary copy per sub vs reuse the same post? Curious whether the perks angle scaled across big business subs or if it was the long tail of niche ones.
The part I never see addressed in Reddit growth posts: how did you pick which subreddits? I'm working on a consumer multiplayer game (not SaaS) and my instinct says the rules are totally different — SaaS subs tolerate problem/solution posts, but most game subs are ruthless about self-promo even when the post is genuinely useful. Did you lean into subs where your product was on-topic, or into larger ones where you had to be more indirect? And roughly what share of the 2,000 came from one breakout post vs steady drip?
2000 users from Reddit is solid 👏
Curious about one thing:
did engagement stay consistent after the initial growth,
or did it drop once the novelty faded?
We’ve seen that acquisition is easy compared to retention,
especially if the product flow has small frictions.
Would love to hear how you handled that part.
The low-karma barrier is what I keep hitting. Most subreddits filter or shadow-ban posts from new accounts, so even good content never lands.
When you started, what was your account situation? Did you build karma by commenting first, or did you find subreddits with looser restrictions to get initial traction?
Same problem here. Just tried posting a validation question on r/SaaS and got auto-removed twice — once for an AI disclosure line, second time probably for low karma. Curious what subreddits actually worked for you and whether you had to build karma first or just got lucky with timing?
Having the same issue! Would love to know how to get around this.
Whoa, this is such a breath of fresh air 😂 I swear, I’ve been hunting for SaaS deals for months and every single list I find is either outdated, dead links, or just straight-up ads. It’s so frustrating. This is actually the first one that feels like someone built it for us, not just to farm emails or something. Love that you’re keeping it real with the discounts, no fluff, no clickbait. Quick question tho — do you think you’ll add a “last verified” date for each deal? I’ve wasted so much time clicking links just to find the offer’s dead lmao
thats cool man. i have a project too, i need beta testers
totally agree on the community member mindset, that's where most founders trip up. the hidden cost no one talks about is time though — manually scanning reddit for threads where someone is literally describing the problem you solve eats 2-3 hours a day if you take it seriously, and most people quit before the compounding kicks in.
one thing I learned the hard way: it's not about posting more, it's about being there within the first 4-6 hours. after that the OP has moved on and you're talking to no one. commenting at hour 2 vs hour 12 is basically the difference between 40% reply rates and silence.
also worth adding: same logic works on linkedin posts and discord servers, not just reddit. your ICP complains about the same problem in all three places, just with different vocabulary. when I stopped treating them as separate channels and started thinking of them as one layer, the volume of qualified conversations tripled without spending more time.
curious, did you test discord or linkedin at all, or was reddit just that much better for founders specifically?
Hey, checked your product — nice concept.
One thing I noticed is you’re not leveraging SEO content yet.
A few targeted blog posts could help bring consistent traffic.
I help SaaS startups and Digital Marketing companies grow with SEO and conversion-focused content that turns traffic into leads.
2,000 users from one channel is distribution proof, not luck.
Reddit's intent density is underrated. A founder searching "startup AWS credits" is 10x higher intent than someone scrolling a directory. The trap is Reddit optimizes for lurkers, so the same high-intent user never upvotes.
Which subreddits drove qualified signups, not just traffic?
The move from "marketer" to "community member" mindset is what separates people who get traction on Reddit from people who get banned trying. Most founders treat it like a distribution channel and communities can smell that instantly.
The $35K in cumulative revenue from zero paid acquisition is the kind of number that makes the business model legible to sponsors too. Were the early sponsors coming from the same subreddits you were posting in, or were they a different inbound channel entirely? Curious whether the community-first approach bled into the sponsor acquisition side or if that was a separate motion.
"Distribution beats virality" is the most underrated point in here. Every founder I talk to is chasing one big viral moment — the HN front page, the Twitter thread that hits 1000 RTs. But the compounding effect you describe (modest engagement, new users every week, without doing anything new) is actually worth more long-term because it doesn't require you to be brilliant every week.
The mental shift from "marketer" to "community member" is also harder than it sounds. The failure mode I see most: founders join Reddit, write a post that sounds exactly like a product announcement with different words, and wonder why it gets 2 upvotes. The subreddits where your users actually live can smell a pitch even when it's disguised.
Quick question on your subreddit targeting: how did you initially identify which subreddits had the right density of your actual customers vs just founders/startup people? That's the filtering step most people skip.
Bravo, I also made app by myself, but sportsmans like other social networks. Do you have advice?
Congrats on shipping! Social networks are hard because you need both sides of the network active before anything feels valuable, so my main advice would be to pick one very specific sport or community and go deep there first instead of trying to be "for all sportsmen" from day one. Reddit grew from tech, Strava grew from cyclists, every social network started narrow.
Second thing, find the 20-50 most active people in that niche and onboard them manually. Seed the content yourself if you have to. An empty social network feels dead, a small active one feels alive.
What sport or community are you focusing on?
Im coach for physical preparation (basketball). Thank you :)
The Reddit playbook breakdown here is solid, and the point about "thinking like a community member instead of a marketer" is where most founders mess it up. They show up with a product, not a perspective, and Reddit sniffs that out immediately.
What I found most interesting is the decision to build SEO into the product structure from the start — perks pages, comparison pages, alternatives — rather than treating it as a layer to add later. That's a distribution-aware architecture decision, and it's harder to retrofit than people realize.
The "email list too late" regret is one of the most common post-mortems I hear from indie founders. Traffic without capture is basically sampling, not building. Curious whether you've experimented with any lead magnets beyond the newsletter itself — things like a "best perks for your stack" quiz, or a free tier that gates something just useful enough to get the email.
Appreciate that, the SEO-as-architecture point is something I wish more founders heard early. Retrofitting comparison pages and alternatives pages onto an existing site is painful, baking them into the product from day one means every new deal added to saasoffers.tech automatically creates 3-5 indexable pages. Compounds fast.
On lead magnets, honestly I've under-experimented here. Right now the newsletter is the main capture and the free tier (browsing deals without claiming) is the gate. I've been thinking about a "best perks for your stack" quiz exactly like you mentioned, where founders input the tools they use and get matched with relevant deals plus an estimated annual savings number. The savings number is the hook, founders respond to specific dollar amounts way more than generic "curated deals" messaging.
The other one I want to build is a free AEO audit tool tied to my other project aeorank.tech, since a lot of saasoffers.tech's traffic comes from AI citations and founders keep asking how to replicate that. Two different audiences but same email funnel.
Have you found any lead magnet formats that consistently outperform others in your space?
This is a really solid breakdown — especially the focus on distribution over chasing virality.
The partnership point stood out the most. Borrowing trust from established platforms feels way more sustainable than trying to generate it from scratch, especially early on.
Also agree on consistency > spikes. A lot of people underestimate how powerful “being present everywhere your users already are” can be, even without big engagement numbers.
I’m currently working on something in the trust/verification space, and this makes me think distribution itself is part of the trust problem — where something appears often influences whether people believe it.
Curious — which of these channels ended up bringing the highest quality users, not just the most traffic?
Great question, and the answer surprised me. Reddit brought the most traffic but Twitter/X actually brought the highest quality users for saasoffers.tech. Reddit converts on volume because founders are there looking for tools, but a lot of the signups never activate. Twitter users who found us through a specific founder they follow came in warmer, converted to paid faster, and stuck around longer.
Partnerships were the highest quality by far though, just lower volume. When a SaaS company we had a deal with mentioned saasoffers.tech in their founder newsletter or onboarding flow, those users showed up already understanding what a startup perks platform is and why it matters. Almost no education needed, which is huge when you're selling a $79/year subscription.
The value first, product second rule on Reddit is the only approach that really works long term. I tried doing it the other way with DictaFlow early on, dropping links in threads without actually adding much to the conversation, and it got me nowhere fast. Once I switched to just answering questions honestly and only mentioning the product when it was actually relevant, the quality of traffic changed completely. The email list point is something I keep hearing from founders who are a year or two ahead of me. I'm starting to take it more seriously now. Good write-up.
Yeah the shift is night and day once you stop treating Reddit like a distribution channel and start treating it like a conversation. The traffic that comes from a genuinely helpful comment converts 5-10x better than anything I got from direct promo, even when the promo posts got more upvotes.
On the email list, take it seriously now rather than later. I waited too long with saasoffers.tech and left a lot of value on the table, a startup perks platform lives or dies on repeat visits and email is the only channel you actually control. Even a simple weekly deals roundup would've compounded faster if I'd started at 200 signups instead of 1,500.
Very smart move, what worked best for you?
Thanks! A few things that worked for saasoffers.tech :
Answering questions in threads instead of posting about the platform directly. saasoffers.tech is a startup perks platform curating 500+ verified SaaS deals for early-stage founders, so I'd give real tool recommendations first and mention the relevant deal at the end. Helpful comments beat promotional posts every time.
Staying consistent with one angle: "stop paying full price for SaaS when startup programs exist." Repetition built recognition.
AEO was an unplanned win. Reddit threads get pulled into ChatGPT and Perplexity answers, so helpful comments keep driving qualified traffic months later.
reat execution here — especially the intentional approach to Reddit instead of treating it like a dumping ground for links. The “value first, product second” mindset really shows in the results.
Also liked how you combined multiple slow-burn channels (SEO, affiliates, partnerships) rather than relying on a single spike. That compounding effect is underrated.
The note about starting the email list earlier is spot on — that’s usually the hidden growth lever most people realize too late.
Curious — did SEO or Reddit end up driving better long-term retention for you?
Reddit visitors already trust the context they found you in, so they sign up, stick around and actually come back to claim deals. SEO feeds the top of funnel, Reddit builds the community.
yeah the DMs after honest failures are different - founders sharing their version of the same story, not just "nice post". the no-CTA thing is probably why it worked
the distribution point hit different fr. most founders i talk to are obsessed with "going viral" but you basically proved that boring and consistent beats one lucky spike every time.
Yeah viral is a lottery ticket, consistency is a business.
The boring stuff is surprisingly effective and its proven time and time again
the "provide value first, mention product last" approach on reddit is honestly the only thing that works there. i've seen so many founders get destroyed in comments for even slightly promotional posts. the subreddit cultures are brutal about that stuff.
one thing that stood out to me - you said the email list came too late and that's a mistake i'm making right now with my own project. what kind of lead magnet would you use if you started over? was it just a "get the best deals" type signup or something more specific?
Yeah Reddit mods and users can smell a pitch from a mile away, the second it feels promotional you're done. On the lead magnet, a generic "get the best deals" signup is weak because it competes with every other newsletter in the founder's inbox, I'd go way more specific if I started over. Something like "the 10 perks that save early-stage founders the most money in year one" as a free PDF or a simple interactive calculator that shows your potential savings based on your stack, both give immediate value and self-qualify the lead because only people actually in that stage will opt in. The tighter the promise and the faster the payoff, the better it converts, vague lists of deals belong on the site not in a lead magnet.
The "Reddit rewards specificity and skin in the game" insight from the founder reply is honestly worth more than the whole post lol. That matches everything I've seen too - generic "top 10 tools" posts get nuked by mods but detailed breakdowns of what you actually did with real numbers always get engagement.
2000 users with zero paid acquisition from Reddit alone is legit impressive though. Most founders I know burn through Reddit karma in like 2 weeks and give up. The patience to comment-first for weeks before ever mentioning your product is what separates the people who actually make Reddit work from the people who write "Reddit marketing doesn't work" posts.
Appreciate that, and yeah the patience piece is what filters everyone out. Most founders last two weeks because they're measuring Reddit like it's paid ads, clicks today, signups tomorrow, and when the numbers don't move fast enough they quit and blame the platform. Reddit doesn't work on that timeline, you're building trust and pattern recognition in a community, people see your name three or four times being genuinely helpful before they ever click anything, and that's exactly why the traffic it does send converts so much better than anywhere else. Slow to start, impossible to replicate once it's working.
Really resonated with this. I just launched a SaaS for fitness coaches this week and ran straight into the Reddit wall you described. Brand new account, posted to 4 subreddits, every post auto-removed by spam filters. Zero karma means invisible.
Your point about thinking like a community member first is spot on. Spending my time now just leaving helpful comments in fitness subs before mentioning my product again. Slower but feels right.
The email list regret hits home too. Added email capture on day 2 after realizing I was losing every visitor who did not sign up immediately. Should have been there from day one.
You're doing the right thing, karma-less accounts are basically invisible on Reddit and the fastest way to fix that isn't posting harder, it's being the most useful commenter in those subs for a few weeks. Answer questions, share what you've learned, no links no pitch, mods and users start recognizing the username and when you eventually post something the algorithm and the community both treat you differently. And yeah the email capture on day two is already better than most people manage, losing visitors before you have a way to reach them again is the silent killer for early stage, glad you caught it early.
Solid breakdown. Curious about the Reddit engineering specifically — how did you handle the self-promo line? Most SaaS-adjacent subs either auto-filter links or have mods who ban fast for product mentions in the first couple weeks. Did you build comment karma in those subs first, or find ones with looser rules? And what was the top-performing post type — the "which perks are worth claiming" breakdowns, or something else entirely?
Mods ban low-effort link drops, not useful posts, so if it reads fine with zero links you're safe. And the perk breakdowns flopped on Reddit, what actually worked were founder-journey posts with real numbers and tactical breakdowns of specific growth experiments, Reddit rewards specificity and skin in the game.
That matches a pattern I keep seeing — product-focused content flops, founder-reality content lands. Do you remember your lowest-performing perk breakdown vs your top founder-journey post side by side? The gap between what you thought would work and what actually did is usually where the real lesson lives — would be useful to see the two next to each other.
Yeah the gap was real and honestly kind of embarrassing in hindsight. My lowest performer was a classic perks listicle, felt like a no-brainer because people literally search for that, but on Reddit it read promotional and got buried, barely any engagement or signups. The top founder-journey post was a transparent breakdown of my first few months with real numbers, what channels flopped, what actually worked, mistakes I made along the way. Same product, same audience, wildly different reception. The lesson is Reddit doesn't want polished content, it wants the messy truth with receipts, the rougher and more honest the post the better it performs.
"Messy truth with receipts" is the cleanest framing I've heard for this. One thing I'd add: what wins on Reddit usually dies on LinkedIn, and vice versa. Reddit rewards length, specificity, unresolved tension. LinkedIn rewards compression and a clean ending. Same story, different rooms — you can't cross-post, each platform needs its own version.
Validation before building is something I wish more people talked about. The temptation to just start coding is real but talking to real people first saves months of wasted time. How long did your validation take before you felt confident enough to build?
Validation was maybe two weeks of conversations, I talked to around 30-40 early-stage founders in Slack communities and Twitter DMs and kept hearing the same thing, they knew perks existed somewhere but every time they needed one they'd waste an afternoon digging
could you please mention, how we manage partnership like you ?
This is a masterclass in organic distribution. I love how you’ve treated every feature as a potential traffic channel.
I spend a lot of time doing behavioral diagnostics, and I’m curious about the 'Post-Perk' behavior. Have you noticed a specific pattern or 'Aha! moment' in the data that separates the users who just sign up for one discount and leave, versus those who stay and engage with the referral/accelerator tools?
I’m always fascinated by that behavioral shift where a 'deal-seeker' turns into a 'community member.' Congrats on the $35k milestone!
Thanks, and yeah the pattern is pretty clear in the data. Deal-seekers claim one perk, usually the biggest dollar value one, and vanish. The ones who stick around almost always claim a second perk within the first seven days, that's the single strongest signal we have. One claim feels like luck, two feels like a system they've plugged into, and the mental model shifts from "I found a discount" to "this is part of my stack now." Referral and accelerator engagement almost always comes after that second claim, never before, so we've started surfacing a second relevant perk right after the first one lands.
That 7-day window for the second claim is a crazy strong signal. It’s the perfect ‘bridge’ from just a deal-seeker to someone actually using the system. I’d be curious to see if there’s any invisible friction in that week that’s still stopping the others from hitting that second perk. Super interesting that the mental model shifts right there. Thanks for the breakdown!
Amazing, I need to do this for my site
Go for it, the hardest part is just starting and staying consistent, pick one or two channels and commit for a few months before judging results. Happy to answer anything specific if you run into walls.
Quick question — have you ever had an AI workflow that slowly becomes inconsistent over time, even when nothing obvious changed?
I’ve been seeing that pattern a lot.
Working on something that stabilizes that kind of drift underneath systems — not replacing anything, just keeping behavior consistent.
Curious if that’s something you’ve run into.
Yeah I've run into it, especially with content generation and classification workflows, same prompt same inputs but outputs slowly drift in tone or structure over weeks and you can't point to what changed. My hacky fix has been pinning model versions and keeping a small eval set I rerun weekly to catch drift early, but that's more detection than stabilization. Curious what your approach looks like, is it a middleware layer or something closer to the prompt itself?
Yeah, that’s a great way to describe it—most setups right now are really good at detecting drift, but not actually keeping behavior anchored over time.
What I’ve been working on is closer to a lightweight external layer that sits alongside the system and focuses on maintaining consistency across runs, not just evaluating after the fact.
It’s less about changing the prompt itself and more about keeping the system aligned with its prior behavior over time.
Still early, but it’s been interesting seeing how much of that drift isn’t really fixable at the prompt level alone.
I think I'm trying to follow this path like everyone else, but all my motivation keeps getting thwarted by some of Reddit's ridiculous filters. Despite being a real, active user with thousands of karma points, my friendly, non-advertising posts are being removed because of the filters, forcing me to manually submit applications. In my case (I created a plugin that increases WordPress site performance by around 60% without caching), the WordPress sub won't even accept this: "WordPress is sometimes slow because..." Boom! The post is already removed. Reddit is really wearing me down; I'm doing my best, but these rules can be really harsh sometimes.
Yeah Reddit filters are brutal and karma doesn't save you, they're keyword based. "WordPress is slow because" reads like a pitch setup even if it isn't, try pure discussion framing like "what's actually causing slow WordPress sites in 2026." Also modmail the mods before posting, tell them what you want to share and ask if it fits, that single message has unblocked more posts for me than anything else. And start in smaller adjacent subs like r/webdev or r/ProWordPress, they're more forgiving and the karma carries over.
Reddit is truly awful. I agree with what you've said, but some of the restrictions seem really arbitrary. No product advertising. You get banned even for mentioning a moderator's mistake of spreading misinformation. I definitely don't see Reddit as a suitable platform. Most communities seem to exist for advertising, not for helping each other. Even helpful comments can sometimes be rejected. Reddit is a disappointment for me so far.
Impressive growth on zero ad spend! I’m taking a similar path with my new startup, focusing on high-ticket affiliate commissions (40%) rather than paid acquisition. The compounding effect of organic search and partnerships you mentioned is exactly what I’m aiming for. Thanks for sharing the playbook—it’s a huge motivation for us solo founders!
Thanks, and a 40% commission is a strong hook, affiliates will actually push for you at that rate instead of just collecting a link. One thing that took me too long to figure out, affiliates don't sell the product they sell the story, so giving them pre-written angles, real numbers and a few ready-to-use post templates converts way better than just handing over a dashboard and hoping. Good luck with the build, solo and organic is slower but the compounding is real once it kicks in.
Very nice story mate! Congrats
Thanks mate, appreciate it!
How did you identify which subreddits were worth targeting vs which ones were a waste of time?
Trial and error at first, then three filters. One, is the sub actually engaging with founder text posts or just memes and links, check the top of the month. Two, read the rules and a few removed posts to feel out the mod culture, some harsh-looking subs are fine if you post value, some chill ones nuke anything promotional. Three, audience fit matters more than size, smaller tighter subs with engaged builders convert way better than giant generic ones where posts drown in hours.
On which subreddits did you start posting?
Reddit was a reality check , building a startup isn’t a kids game. It’s slow, unpredictable, and most things fail. I’m still building and learning through it.
Yeah Reddit humbles you fast, no warm network no vanity metrics just strangers telling you exactly what they think of your idea. It's painful in the moment but it's honestly one of the best filters for whether you're building something real or just something you want to be real. Keep going, the people still building after the reality check are usually the ones who end up making it work.
This is really helpful — especially the point about thinking like a community member instead of a marketer. I'm at the very start of validating an idea for Shopify store owners and have been overthinking how to approach Reddit. Did you ever get posts removed before you figured out the right approach?
Oh yeah constantly, probably a dozen removals in my first month, some for being too promotional even when I thought I was helping, some for rules I hadn't read carefully. Every removal taught me something about that sub's culture though. For Shopify I'd start in r/shopify and r/ecommerce but just comment for the first few weeks, answer real questions and get a feel for what lands. Then frame your first post as a question or lesson learned, something like "been talking to 20 store owners about X, here's what keeps coming up" beats "I built a tool that solves X" every time. Removals are part of the curve, don't take it personally.
Curious to understand how long did it take before Reddit started driving consistent traction. And did you just market on Reddit or are there any other avenues?
me too
the 'think like a community member' part is the actual unlock - most people find the right subreddits but still post like a marketer. what was your first post that actually felt like it belonged?
Honestly it was a post where I wasn't even trying to promote anything, I shared a mistake I'd made with a failed partnership pitch and what I'd do differently, no link no CTA just the story. It hit way harder than anything polished I'd written before and a bunch of founders DMed me afterwards, that's when it clicked that Reddit doesn't want your pitch it wants your scar tissue. Once I stopped writing posts to drive signups and started writing them as if I was just another founder venting or sharing in the thread, everything changed.
I love this for you! Thanks for all the tips! Ive found Reddit and partnerships to be super valuable for my SaaS.
Mostly cold email honestly, no fancy channel. I'd target SaaS tools that already ran a startup program somewhere else since that told me they got the audience, then email their partnerships person directly with specifics, here's our traffic, here's our signup numbers, here's exactly where your deal would sit on the platform. No decks no fluff. Once a few big names were on, warm intros took over and response rates jumped. Start cold, be specific, let the first logos pull in the rest.
Solid breakdown — especially the ‘product as distribution’ part.
Reddit + SEO + partnerships is a powerful combo when each layer reinforces the other.
You should test this in a live setting as well — we’re running a small round where builders bring ideas like this. $19 entry, winner gets a Tokyo trip (flights + hotel).
Round 01 just opened (100 cap) — best odds right now
Nice story, the is really something people can try, I have a question though, it's about partnerships, what was the process like. Was there a specific channel you passed through?.
“Really interesting growth story—especially the focus on Reddit as your primary channel. A lot of founders underestimate how powerful niche communities can be when you approach them with the right intent.
One thing I’m curious about: how did you balance providing value vs. promoting your product without getting flagged or ignored? That line is usually where most people struggle on Reddit.
Also, did you find that certain types of posts (case studies, questions, transparent building updates) converted better than others? Would love to hear more about what actually drove signups vs. just engagement.”
Suggestions you could give (if you're reviewing or responding more deeply):
Your idea is strong, but here are a few ways it could be even better:
Be more specific about tactics
“Grew through Reddit” is interesting, but what people really want is how.
→ Mention exact subreddits, post formats, timing, and examples.
Show real numbers or conversion insights
For example:
Views → clicks → signups
Which post brought the most users
This makes the post more actionable.
Include one failure or mistake
Posts become more credible when you say:
“This didn’t work, and here’s why.”
Break down the playbook
Turn your experience into steps like:
Find niche subreddit
Engage for X days
Post value-first content
Softly introduce product
Add a repeatable takeaway
Readers should walk away thinking:
“I can try this tomorrow.”
Interesting marketing strategy, grassroots marketing is always a better choice for any startup
Yeah grassroots just compounds in a way paid never does, every Reddit comment, every blog post, every partnership stays working for you months or years later while paid stops the second you stop the spend. Slower to start but the ceiling is way higher.
Wow !I had more luck with Medium when I write about Podsplice. I find that even if I think I'm being helpful on Reddit, they are quick to ban it. I know some people are good at it.
Yeah Reddit is a different beast, even genuinely helpful posts get nuked if the account is new or the sub has tight filters. Medium works differently because you own the surface, no mods no karma gates, so it rewards people who can actually write. If Medium is already working for you I'd double down there and treat Reddit as a slow side channel, build karma over months by just commenting helpfully with zero agenda, then revisit posting later when the account has history. No point forcing a channel that's fighting you when another one is already paying off.
This is a really cool product I might sign up, just founded a startup and the API credits for AWS/Google/OpenAI could be really helpful early infra costs!
Appreciate that, and yeah those infra credits are usually the highest ROI perks for early stage, AWS and Google alone can cover your first several months of hosting if you stack them right. Let me know if you sign up and I'll make sure you know which ones to prioritize for your stack.
https://saasoffers.tech/signup
Yeah it is, but Google can easily say your startup isn’t elligible, as a personal experience, try with Azure or AWS first
Nice execution, especially with no budget and no existing network. The zero ad spend angle is genuinely worth studying for anyone here in the early distribution phase.
Appreciate that, zero budget forces you to get good at the fundamentals which honestly ends up being a long term advantage, once paid acquisition is on the table you already know what converts organically and you're not just renting traffic.
That's awesome!I've personally had more luck with Medium when I write about Podsplice. I find that even if I think I'm being helpful on Reddit, they are quick to ban it. I know some people are good at it, but I still haven't figured it out.
just commenting helpfully in the right subs and letting people ask what I do. Medium sounds easier, curious what has been working for you there, publications or just your own profile?
I do both publications and my own profile. I also do Substack. I've written more than 250 Medium articles on Medium. If you just Google, "Andrew Best Medium" you'll see what's been working for me. That's probably the easiest way to explain.
👍
This comment was deleted a month ago
This comment was deleted a month ago