Lessons learned from launching on Reddit
Hey IndieHackers! 👋
I recently launched my project on Reddit and got some good results that I'd thought I'd share here! I had two separate campaigns, and I learned a ton from both of them, so here are the highlights:
1st Round
I tried a scrappy and quick post. The goal was to get a pulse on wether I have something interesting, and to collect feedback. I made a basic 30s screen recording showcasing my product and posted it in the afternoon. I posted in r/SideProject and positioned the post as "I made this ..." instead of portraying it like an official company so that users would be more forgiving if the product had bugs or issues, and I figured this would help with feedback.
The results were decent, after 48hrs:
- 10.6k impressions
- 32 installs (0.3%)
So lessons learned from that post:
- The side project positioning was definitely the right choice, Reddit was super positive and more forgiving of things that were rough around the edges.
- The video was also the right choice, I have a product that's difficult to explain so demonstrating it on video definitely helped, except I don't think the unedited screen recording did it justice.
- Timing of the post matters. My post got some legs but it quickly dropped off and didn't pick up steam.
2nd Round
Taking the lessons from the first post, I spent some time addressing some of the feedback. But importantly, I also worked on a new video. I invested in fancy screen recording software to make a really good video that could show multiple use cases, I sped it up and cut out loading times to make it look professional.
This time, I also made sure to post at 6-8am EST. This is generally a great time to post on Reddit since Europe is awake and the US is just waking up. The hope is that the Europeans can upvote your post enough to make it go semi-viral. Then, when the east coast is waking up, they can really get your post to become popular. This definitely works! These posts had a steady climb of views and didn't peak until the 10th-12th hour after posting, whereas my first post that was posted mid-day peaked after it's 2nd hour.
I also cross posted to different subreddits with the hopes that at least one of them would go viral. I researched similar startup posts that went viral on Reddit to see what their strategy was. And there is definitely some survivor bias here, but I found most of them posted to a large subreddit and crossposted to smaller ones. I picked r/ChatGPT because those members would easily understand my product, and crossposted to r/OpenAI and r/artificial which were similar. That said, I would recommend finding a subreddit that is related to your product and your target market browses daily. And read the rules! Not all subreddits allow self-promotion.
The results from these three posts were much better, after 48hrs:
- 82.3k impressions
- 828 installs (1%)
I was very happy with this outcome, and importantly, I got a lot of good data from it. For instance, the 2nd campaign had a higher rate of installations per impression than the first (0.3% vs 1%). This is likely because the edited video was more convincing than the first, but it can also be because the people that browse r/ChatGPT already have the problem that my product solves.
In summary, here are the key takeaways:
- A little preparation goes a long way.
- Investing in a quality video can make all the difference, especially if your product needs a lot of education
- When you post is just as important as what you post!
- Post where your target market will be. An view is not as valuable if that person doesn't need your product
I hope this helps you in your own startup journey. Good luck and happy hacking! 💪
P.S. If you're curious my project is called BLUF (bluf.ai). It's a chrome extension that answers questions about the page you're on:
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/bluf/edcebjbpihembjfeogmjamkphfhldnln
Thanks for sharing Viviano! Time, fancy video, crosspost, got it. Will try the strategy in my next posting.
Also, mind sharing which screen recording software you used to make your second video?
Absolutely, I used screen.studio and iMovie
thanks!
Thanks for the great post and insight on the Reddit promotion. I have a side question if you don't mind. I see on your product page that you offer unlimited prompts in the most expensive plan. How did you estimate the usage in terms of prompts on that plan so that you don't lose money from it? I assume you pay for the AI inference every time someone uses your extension.
Great question! I did a bunch of cost analysis which turned out to be pretty accurate after I launched. That's actually not a bad idea for a new post.
Short answer, yes I am paying for the free tier, but that's the cost for growth!
The design of your landing page is awesome! Short, sweet, and to the point!
Thank you, glad you like it!
Thank you for sharing your experience! Very useful and interesting. Did you have high karma and reputation when you self-promoted?
Not super high Karma. I had around 1k before posting and now I'm at 2k.
I don't think Karma is as important as making sure your account isn't entirely for advertising. Many mods will remove your post if your account is pure advertising
Yes, that makes sense. I got it. Thanks for your reply.
I really like the error and trial approach you took. Your work is really inspiring.
I really like your post. Thanks for sharing your experience with no bullshit man. I also checked your website and liked your design approach, excellent job.
Does anybody have a list, doc or a post about winner reddit posts like this one? There are too many threads about almost everything, but it would be good that read and study reddit campaigns :) I am just thinking out loudly btw.
Thanks for your post! I wonder how to kick start as I'm always super timid to share my thought publicly and the more I think the harder i kick start....
Thank you for the insights Viviano, will definitely take your suggestions into account for my marketing strategy. I'm actually in the web development industry and it's always interesting to see how different people approach marketing. Looking forward to future posts and what other insights you bring us.
Thanks for this post. Nice work.
One of the most helpful posts about reddit that I have seen in a while
Really loved your thought process on this. Glad to see you've gained some traction--congratulations. Really like your product idea. :)
Took your advice and posted it to this subreddit as well in the recommended time slots, let's see how it goes :)
Cool insights, curious what you plan to test next? Feel as though there may be marginal gains / cannibalization for cross posting past a certain threshold (if someone frequents many similar subs and sees your post consistently across them, it may become a deterrent).
Yes there could definitely have been some cannibalization from cross posting. It’s also possible cross posting got the original post more views/upvotes. I think this is definitely a case by case type of thing so I would trust your gut on this and look for similar posts that worked and didn’t work and base your structure off of that
Your insights are really valuable for our upcoming launches. The ideas you've shared make a lot of sense!
As a BI analyst working in a fintech company that is completely digital, I have to say that your approach is the best. A/B testing and iteration are crucial components of launching digital products
Thanks for sharing this. Good tips that I'll be sure to try!
I'm in a similar situation that my (pretty niche) solution is kinda hard to explain, so a short video may indeed be a good option.
The only thing that works on reddit is be as personal as possible 💯 Everything else gets backlash or taken down. That's why I recently made a list of 30+ viral post ideas to promote on top subreddits. You can check it out here. I thought it might help 👇
https://launchpedia.co/post-ideas-to-selfpromote-on-reddit/
This was super insightful, I'll be trying your tips! Thank you
Thanks for sharing your experience, really it was very useful to me.
You inspired me. I had thought that Reddit was not good.
You kept people engage about your work and share your progress ....you are taking users with you in that journey ...
And that's awesome way to engage with the people..
thanks for these tips, I'll try them today !
BTW, good job on your project, looks really interesting !
Thanks for sharing your insights and subreddits! Stoked that you got a lot of positive responses and actual installs, what's next for your product? Will you be launching on PH?
Yes, I’m trying to keep a cycle of improving the product, then launching.
PH is next but I want to improve my SEO so I can have good discoverability after launching there.
Interesting tips! Fascinating that there was that much of a difference when posting at different times.
Could you share a link to your post on Reddit?
Sure, here's the 1st post:
https://www.reddit.com/r/SideProject/comments/11jd6li/i_made_a_chrome_extension_that_lets_you_ask_any/
And here's the 2nd post:
https://www.reddit.com/r/ChatGPT/comments/11mpzbz/i_made_a_chrome_extension_that_uses_chatgpt_to/
Love the serif font choice on your website! Did you also post on other platforms like LinkedIn?
Thanks! And I have only posted on Reddit and Twitter
Thanks for sharing!
Great insight. If I understand it correctly it boils down to:
Very practical advice, which is the best kind!
Interesting - will also try to gain momentum using Reddit & will try out using Video format. Appreciate your sharing this invaluable information!
Thank you Viviano! Will try the extension too. Just sent you an email btw (Alex N)
This is super interesting!!
Thanks for sharing the step by step and lessons learned.
I am also in the chrome extension world, trying to figure out what works. So far, i've gotten some downloads from Quora ads, but honestly pretty expensive.
I think I will give Reddit a try.
Also, the extension looks very helpful. I will try it out.
When you launch on Reddit be transparent. It's important. Be honest about who you are and what you're offering, and be prepared to answer questions and engage in conversation.
Yes from my experience that’s the best strategy
This is super helpful, thank you Viviano!
Nice post and Nice work
great insight, thanks for sharing!
What's your next plan?
I'm planning on launching on ProductHunt this Sunday!
Nice, good luck with your ProductHunt launch!
Thank you for sharing your insightful experience here. The most impressive thing is the side project positioning. I'll try this when I launch.
I will try this. Congrats and thank you Viviano
I successfully launched a website years ago via Reddit. It actually crashed my site because of the insane amount of traffic (50K+ visitors in less than 24 hours).
Keep in mind, this was during the initial crypto hype and what I made was the first crypto dictionary (it was goofy, poorly designed but it was mine).
My Tips
Find posts that are interesting to you and write a relevant comment. Repeat that several times a day for a week or two. Ideally, you'll have a couple hundred upvotes from this process. I spread it out over several subreddits, even irrelevant ones like /r/FunnyAnimals
In my case, I went to /r/Bitcoin and /r/ethereum as well as other large and relevant crypto groups and shared a link to the definition of each coin. I asked what they thought about the coin and if they had any feedback to make it better.
Fortunately, these guys wanted to shill (promote) their coins to everyone else to raise the value of each coin and so they were only happy to check out my site, promote it to their friends, and help me make their definition better.
I created 5-10 fake accounts and got them active with a bit of history in reddit. Then I upvoted my post. This brought the post into the "Hot" category for that subreddit and then naturally it got the attention of others who gave it real virality.
This process doesn't always work and is very frowned upon (will get your accounts banned).
However, my justification was some old article (can't seem to find it) going over the founding and inception of Reddit which stated that the founders used this strategy (astroturfing) to suggest legitimate activity and interest in Reddit.
All That to Say
Viviano, it sounds like you did well just applying 1 & 2, I think that's a much better process with a lot more viability. Well done!
BTW, I do recommend creating a new reddit account with your brand's name. That way, if you ever decide to sell you have another digital asset to add value to the transaction. In my case, I sold that site a few years later with the reddit account.
Great job! Reddit is really a testy place to launch something sometimes. Glad it worked well on you! My members at founders cafe often do launching at communities too like reddit, slack servers, discord servers. Like what you said, go where your audience are :D
Great read. I tested Reddit one time and I got absolutely destroyed by trolls. We live and we learn. Good job!
You impressed me a lot! I don't know how to post on Reddit, I've made a few attempts, but my posts were deleted by admins. Even if there weren't any links about my projects or smth like that :)
Thanks for your story
This is really insight full I was also planning to do a reddit launch for my app. QQ what all resources did you use to structure your release on reddit.
I didn't use anything specific. I just did some research on other posts that were successful
Thanks, these are very useful insights into utilising Reddit. Reddit, imo, has alot pof potential for lauching apps and/or products.
I tried creating an advertisement for my app (Capture Note) but the results were not good. However, I didn't realize the reason behind it. I just thought that my app wasn't interesting to people. But after reading your article, I was able to think about what was lacking in my app again. Thank you so much.
Reddit can be challenging. In my experience, posting any link leads to a shadow ban 😂
Yeah you have to read the rules of each subreddit
Thank you very much for this. I'm building a European travel tool, Eurotripr.com, and have posted about it in the past on Reddit, but got threatened with a ban and banned from r/solotravel for self promotion. I know where my target market hangs out on reddit, but wasn't sure how to post about Eurotripr again in those subreddits. Now I think i will look for other subs (like r/SideProject) to post about my project in hopes it gains traction and THEY post it in the 'proper' subs. Thanks for this!
Yes you have to be careful with self promption on some subreddits.
For your specific site, the "when" might also apply to "when in the year".
I'd imagine this is more useful closer to the spring break season or summer when people are planning Euro trips
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I also wrote something on this you might find useful for my AI tool Evoke: https://www.indiehackers.com/post/how-i-grew-my-discord-to-1000-members-in-under-a-month-using-reddit-comments-e71eabab7e
The trick is to leave lots of comments
It is true that AI is becoming an increasingly popular trend in the tech industry, and it is likely that we will continue to see more and more products incorporating AI in the near future. However, it is important to keep in mind that AI is not a one-size-fits-all solution, and not every product idea will necessarily benefit from incorporating AI.
It sounds like you have found success with Reddit, which is focused on reducing churn rates and increasing MRR for membership businesses. While AI may be useful in some aspects of this type of product, it is not necessarily a requirement for its success. It is great that you are exploring other options and ideas for future products, but it is important to evaluate each idea on its own merits and consider whether AI is truly necessary or beneficial for that particular product.
Best of luck with your future endeavors and exploring Reddit as a potential platform!
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It looks like AI is becoming a popular trend now, as every product idea seems to incorporate it. No doubt, we will see 60-80% of projects using AI in the near future.
When I started working on Churnfree.com, there were two other options. One of them was an AI idea, but I left it and am now working on starting it again (in the research phase).
However, I am happy with Churnfree as it is a great product for membership businesses that are helping them to reduce churn rates and increase monthly recurring revenue (MRR) on automation.
Now i will try Reddit for my future product thanks for sharing your experience.
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