I didn't build an audience. I built a system.
I crossed $2.5K MRR.
No audience. No newsletter. No Product Hunt launch.
Every week, someone asks me how I grew without an audience.
The answer is simple: I don't need one. I built a system instead.
1) "Build an audience first" is bad advice for most early-stage founders
The standard playbook says: grow a following, then sell to it.
That works if you already have an audience. Or if you have 6 months to build one before you need revenue.
Most bootstrappers don't have either.
I didn't have a following when I launched. I didn't have a blog. I didn't have a newsletter list. Waiting to "build an audience" would have meant waiting to make money.
So I skipped it entirely.
2) I went directly to where my buyers already were
Instead of trying to attract people to me, I went to the places where my ICP was already hanging out.
I found posts where people were actively looking for a solution like mine. I left helpful replies. I sent personalized DMs to people who had clear, active pain.
Not once. Every single day.
This wasn't random outreach. My tool surfaces high-intent threads automatically, so I could focus on conversations instead of searching.
That daily system brought in 100+ high-intent visitors every week. Not followers. Not subscribers. People who were already looking for what I built.
3) A system compounds. An audience launch doesn't.
Launch platforms and viral moments give you a one-time spike. You get a rush of signups, most of them from people who were curious but not buying.
A system gives you compounding growth.
Every conversation I have teaches me something new about my ICP. That insight improves my product, my positioning, and my outreach. Which leads to better conversations. Which leads to more customers.
That's the loop that took me from $0 to $2.5K MRR. Not a big moment. Just a small system, repeated every day.
You don't need to be internet-famous to build a profitable SaaS.
You need a system that puts you in front of the right people every day. That's it.
If you want to see proof and the actual timeline of my growth, you can see it here.
Happy to answer any questions or go deeper so you can apply this to your SaaS!
love it
The tax nobody mentions on the audience route: it never lets you stop. You become the product, so the day you go quiet, growth stops too. A system keeps working when you are not. That is the real unlock.
Yeah you need to eventually systemize your audience growth too
I really liked the approach you have taken. Traditional approach of building an audience is a waiting game, and has a high failure rate. In your approach, you are addressing the problem of finding customers head-on, which ultimately reduces the failure risk as efforts are in the right place.
Exactly
I really like this angle, thank you. It resonates
Good luck man!
It's a great experience. I want to build a SaaS, but I don't have time to build an audience six or more months. So it's a good tip for me. Thanks and I think your system will make you rich.
Good luck man!
Good system is what you need, it will put you front of all people
yep
The system-over-audience frame is right, and I'd add: the system matters most on the days you don't feel like it. I'm 18 running a couple of small projects, and the single biggest upgrade this month wasn't content — it was wiring a daily routine that hands me the day's tasks instead of me deciding each morning. Motivation is a terrible scheduler. Curious what your system does on autopilot vs what still needs you to show up?
It finds relevant Reddit posts to comment on, and it can comment through 3rd party accounts by itself so my account is not involved at all.
It also finds me Reddit leads, prepares personalized DMs, and I can review and send them through my account
got it — the lead-finding and prepared-DMs side makes sense to me. the commenting-through-third-party-accounts part is where i'd personally stay manual; that's the exact pattern platforms hunt for. appreciate the breakdown though.
If you have a quality Reddit account, you'll get best results with commenting from that one. If you don't have one, a third party is a good way to still post stuff without worrying about getting banned or warming up an account
As a solo founder, I find the emphasis on systems particularly compelling. Time is usually the scarcest resource, and manually searching for opportunities across communities doesn’t scale. Creating a structured process around distribution allows founders to spend more energy building while still maintaining a consistent presence where their potential users already are. That’s a valuable shift in mindset.
Exactly
Great idea. Like the way you think and thanks for sharing
Good luck man!
This consistent, low-friction approach is so much smarter than relying on a single viral launch. When you reach out via DMs, do you find people are genuinely receptive, or do you occasionally get pushback for pitching?
Most of the people are receptive because I only target people that are either describing problems my tool solves or explicitly asking for tools like mine
I run a social media SaaS, so it would serve me to tell you to build an audience. I won't. For most pre-revenue founders, direct conversations beat content for exactly the reason you named: learning speed. The nuance I'd add is that those daily replies and DMs quietly become an audience anyway. Your name keeps showing up where your buyers live, and that reputation compounds like a following, just one made of customers instead of spectators.
Yeah, building an audience is more of a long-term investment and is totally worth it long-term. Also, much easier to build an audience once you start stacking wins and have real valuable insights to share
sort of. compounds well only if it's the right thing repeating. spent a stretch getting more efficient at producing nothing - took a while to notice the direction was off
ran this exact experiment for 6 months. didn't expect the daily reps to compound so cleanly, but they do. launch days feel bigger - the grind is what actually sticks.
Yeah, it's crazy how things start compounding after doing something repeatedly
What's interesting is that the system seems to scale understanding before it scales revenue.
By the time someone becomes a customer, you've already seen the language they use, the objections they have, and the problem they're trying to solve.
That tends to make positioning improve much faster than waiting for inbound traffic.
Exactly
Interest Mining && Lead Generation ？？？
$2.5k MRR from daily outreach and thread replies is real traction. the question that would help me understand the system better is how many hours a day it actually takes and whether that time requirement stays flat as you scale or whether you eventually hit a ceiling where the system can't generate more customers without more of your time
I have most of it automated with my tool. To get more customers, I stack other channels on top of this system
fair enough on the automation. the thing i'd want to understand then is what bazzly actually does in the workflow because the post describes a 30 minute manual system and the answer is 'most of it is automated.' those are pretty different products and the person reading the post to replicate the system needs to know which parts they're actually doing themselves versus which parts require the tool. is the 30 minute system replicable without bazzly or is it a bazzly user guide
You don't need Bazzly to run this system. You can run it yourself, it will just take you more time to do it daily. The tool helps you automate it and free up your time
The system vs audience framing is the right way to think about it. Most founders chase followers thinking distribution comes first, but consistent lead flow is an engineering problem, not a popularity contest. What does your feedback loop look like — how long before you know if a content format is working?
If I'm getting more engagement than usual, that means the format is worth keeping
I like this approach a lot. I am starting out now and I think this is what I need to apply.
Thanks for your post
Good luck man!
This is pretty smart instead of looking for gold, sell shovels.
This matches how I think about it after bootstrapping my own SaaS. The part people miss is that the system is not really about outreach volume, it is about harvesting language. Every one of those 1:1 conversations hands you the exact words your buyer uses for their problem, and that language is what makes your product, your pricing page, and eventually your content actually convert. The one thing I would flag for the next stage: pure 1:1 outreach is linear, so your growth is capped by your hours. I would treat the conversations as research that funds a second, more scalable channel once the funnel is healthy, not as the forever engine. You clearly know this given the systemize-then-stack point. At $2.5K MRR, what is the first channel you are stacking on top, and is it inbound or still outbound?
Outbound is my first channel. I have 90% of it automated with my tool.
My new channels are inbound, creating content like this
The hard part of "leave helpful replies" is that helpful is doing a lot of work in that sentence. Founders who burn out on this approach usually skip the step where you understand the problem well enough that your reply would be useful even without mentioning your product.
Curious what that looked like for you in the first few weeks before it felt like a system rather than just daily manual work with no clear feedback?
It was mostly finding threads on Reddit and trying to be as helpful as possible.
You're right that to be helpful you need to have insights that are valuable, and often if you're starting out it's better to focus on DMs first instead of jumping to comments or posts
Got it. That's how it usually works out too. Boring to some, but effective for sure :)
Yeah :D
I am in a similar situation , i built a system with no followers, but i struggle to get subscribers after. what tool did you use to get to where your potential subscribers hangout. My system is for collection of social proof/testimonials, can you suggest any tools?
If your customers are on Reddit you can try Bazzly. I'm mostly marketing on Reddit
I agree with the core idea, but I think “no audience” is a bit overstated here—you’re still effectively building a micro-audience through daily outbound. It’s just targeted acquisition rather than public audience building. The distinction is interesting though.
Yeah that's true
"You need a system that puts you in front of the right people every day." Yes. You said it. That is very true. In my own project, I was able to reach decision makers, CEOs, Marketing Sales personnel I never knew they exist, with the help of my Agent Wings. They are very fast to the point I can't even keep up with their speed.
Really like this approach—going straight to where your users already are makes a lot of sense. The focus on high-intent conversations over vanity metrics is something more founders should pay attention to. Consistency in a simple system clearly beats chasing one-time spikes.
100%
The "you don't always have six months to build an audience" bit really hit.
My problem applying it: your buyers post their pain in places you can find. Mine don't. I'm building a travel app for groups and nobody's in a forum asking how to plan a trip with friends, it all happens in the group chat, offline, nowhere I can DM into.
So genuine question: when the intent is real but invisible like that, where would you even start looking for these people?
For niches like these usually more expensive channels work better like influencer marketing, ads or creating content so those people come to you.
When starting a new product, it's important to validate distribution first to see if you can acquire customers with the resources you have before building the thing
I completely relate to this. Early on, I also fell into the trap of thinking I needed to build an audience first or launch big on platforms like Product Hunt. But like you, I realized that going directly to where my target users were already hanging out was way more effective. Having real conversations with people who had an immediate need for my solution gave me insights I’d never have gotten from passive strategies.
The point about "pain traffic" vs. "attention traffic" really resonates. When I started reaching out to people who were actively voicing their frustrations, the quality of conversations and conversions skyrocketed. It’s not just about volume—it’s about finding the right people at the right time.
One thing that worked for me was leaning on automation to save time. For example, I built a Chrome extension that automates tedious SEO tasks, syncing data directly to Google Sheets. That kind of time-saving value helped me find my niche. Happy to share more if you’re curious.
Curious—how do you balance daily outreach while still finding time to improve the product?
I try to systemize and automate as much as possible
This is the part most founders miss.
The valuable thing here is not “posting more” or “doing more outreach.” It is that you turned buyer-finding into a repeatable operating system.
The key distinction is that your traffic is not attention traffic. It is pain traffic. People already had the problem before they ever saw your product.
That is why this works better than audience-building for most early founders. Audience-building creates future optionality. Buyer-intent systems create current conversations.
The question I’d be curious about is: how much of this is product-specific versus repeatable across other SaaS categories?
Because if the system can be adapted category by category, the real value is not just your tool. It is the process of identifying where buyer pain already shows up and turning that into a daily acquisition loop.
This strategy applies to any SaaS category:
1. find your ICP that are describing problems your tool solves right now
2. Reach out
3. Repeat
Exactly. The repeatable part is the structure.
But the hard part is usually not “reach out.” Most founders can do that.
The hard part is building the pain map for each category:
where the buyer complains
what words they use before they are ready to buy
which posts are real purchase intent vs just frustration
what reply angle gets a conversation instead of looking like a pitch
That changes a lot by category. SaaS for agencies, consultants, local businesses, devtools, and marketplaces all need different pain signals.
For your products, I’d probably map this around the exact buyer-intent triggers first, then turn that into a daily acquisition loop.
Happy to put the tighter version in writing if useful. I can make it specific to Bazly or SaaSCurate instead of keeping it generic.
Worth flagging the structural problem before founders apply this advice.
Bazzly (automatic Reddit replies and DMs to "high-intent leads") gets users shadowbanned. Reddit's anti-automation enforcement tightened massively in 2025-2026. Automated/templated outreach to strangers based on keyword matches is exactly what Reddit's spam detection targets. Users running Bazzly on their main accounts accumulate shadowban signals that suppress all future posts.
The "I left helpful replies and sent personalized DMs every day" framing is the exact pattern that destroys Reddit accounts now. DMing strangers based on tool detection = instant ban risk. Reddit treats this as harassment/spam by design.
Manual Reddit engagement still works if it's genuinely native (commenting in communities you belong to, not keyword-triggered outreach to strangers). The system Filip describes blurs that line.
Verified MRR on TrustMRR (Stripe API-verified, last updated April 2026) shows Bazzly at $1,131 with 39 subscriptions, not $2.5K claimed. Worth checking the proof link before adopting the playbook.
The advice isn't a system — it's a way to burn through Reddit accounts faster than you can recover them.
I've sent over 700 DMs and 100 comments on Reddit over the months using this system. My account is just fine. If you're reaching out to people that are actively looking for a tool like your and offer to help, you won't get banned.
Also, I've posted a TrustMRR link right in the post if you bothered to read it and not use AI to just auto-post comments: https://trustmrr.com/startup/bazzly
That said, curious about your Reddit account karma and how old the account is — that plays a meaningful role here too.
Also worth noting that a lot of subreddits have bots that detect AI-written replies, which can be another trigger.
To be clear, I'm not questioning your MRR or whether the tool works at all — just sharing some observations.
I have a 12y old account with 10k+ karma. If you have 1 month+ old account, with 150+ karma, that's enough to start doing this as long as you don't pitch, spam links or break subreddit rules