How we got 2000 emails from Reddit that lead to our first check

$21,000

The first angel investment. It’s nothing to flaunt about. Definitely not $2.1M. But after countless failures of raising money without much traction, it was a saving grace for our team. Because of that funding, we were able to incorporate, create a real product, and are now being offered term sheets close to a million.

This was all possible by doing one thing. Getting 2000 emails from Reddit.

From 0

Method & Example

We all know how difficult it is to get emails from Reddit. Yes, we must be authentic and engaging. That’s the advice we hear all the time. But there are specific methods of authentic engagements. With good intentions.

First I’ll break down the abstract method, then follow with an example.

• Choose a few subreddits that fall under your target AND “somewhat” allow self-promotion.
• Somewhat means you can post your own if you follow specific guidelines.
• Summarize others’ articles or videos to create content, then post on subs.
  • No promotion.
  • Title is very important.
  • Use social proof: Like mentioning popular figures as authority.
  • Make content that’s personal to you.
• See results then narrow best subs.
• Post more summaries but with much lighter workload 2-3 more times.
• Engage in comments of yours or others’ posts.
• Now you are ready for “self-promotion”

Self-promotion with authenticity

At Reddit, giving value is crucial. Hence, I mentioned posting light content a few more times before posting your own.

Self-promotion still needs to be relevant and authentic. For comparisons, let’s first look at this reddit post in particular (See in comments).

• 709 upvotes, with more time to go.

Success points

• Good title by using a quote relevant to sub
• Social proof by leveraging famous quote
• Used their personal story

However, this didn’t include self-promotion. If it had, there could have been at least 30~50 emails collected.

Now let’s look at this self-promotion post (See in comments).

Success points

• All of the above
• Extra use of studies and research
• Relevant email plug
• Short one liner: Tinder for habits.

Whopping 2.1K upvotes, and 69 comments. At least 100 emails. Yes, I was in charge of the project temporarily to get early adopters before launch.

This was possible because CTR of a well written Reddit post can range from 10% to above 40%. One time, I had a post that resulted in ¼ of the upvotes in sign ups. Upvotes were over 900.

Moreover, because successful posts get ranked on Google, if your posts remain successful, they will continue to get organic hits. If you can share those posts with other blog writers, or even your own, gravy.

Emails to Users to Investment

Back to my current startup.

We spent a few months collecting 2000 emails from Reddit. Meanwhile we engaged with users for user research and idea validation. IR was on-going, but most VCs were asking for “early financial traction”. Since our product was a B2C network, that wasn’t possible at this stage, with small cash in hand.

Here’s the fun part. Most startup founders and even bootstrappers often forget angels. Or people that could be angels. Startup founders often seek famous VCs, while bootstrappers resist all outside cash for more control. Both aren’t always the right option to take.

I was the Startup founder guy.

Ignoring potential angels as serious partners. But as I began to “share” how I was building up emails, virality on Reddit, and how we validated the idea, angels started to promise support.

Since we were super early, we chose SAFE. The terms were far more favourable than VC term sheets. The Reddit posts, viral metrics, emails, and user feedback were more than enough validation for them to swallow the risk.

With the first check, VCs were more open to talk. Those illusive meetings were easier to get, even without a direct intro. Thus, the snowball began. And is still growing.

That’s how our startup, Neble, was built. We began as part-time, but welcomed by Redditors for user research to validate ideas together. Today, we launched pre-beta on Product Hunt with ZERO expectations and prep. Seriously. But even Ryan Hoover seemed to like our product (Thank you Ryan for the upvote).

Thanks for reading.

David T.