My target customers are on Reddit and Discord. Both communities banned AI. How do you break through?
Hi IH,
I've been building OriCards (oricards.com) — an AI trading card generator where you type any prompt and get a fully designed card complete with artwork, rarity tiers, holographic effects, and stats.
The idea came from wanting to combine two things I genuinely love — AI art and trading cards.
And before anyone asks — yes, I know the "validate before you build" rule. I did go through Reddit before building and the demand is there. It's a minority, but indie developers and tabletop designers are always looking for affordable alternatives to commissioned art. Hiring an artist for card assets isn't cheap, and that's exactly the gap OriCards fills.
A few things I've learned the hard way:
→ The hardest part isn't building the product, it's getting the first users
→ TikTok's algorithm heavily favors your local audience — breaking out geographically is harder than anyone tells you
→ Most "free" AI directories aren't actually free — almost every one I tried had a paywall at the end ranging from $39 to $497
→ Visual products need video content — I ended up learning CapCut from scratch just to produce short form content, including figuring out commercial sound licensing to avoid copyright issues
The distribution challenge I didn't see coming is probably the most frustrating one. My target audience is indie developers, tabletop game designers, and TCG lovers. But most relevant Reddit communities and Discord servers have strict no-AI rules. So the exact spaces where my people hang out are the hardest places to show up authentically.
I'm currently working around it through TikTok and YouTube content series that started last week, building domain authority from scratch (DR is sitting at 0 right now), and trying to find communities that are actually open to AI tools. The product is live at oricards.com with a Japanese language version too. But it's slow going.
Would love honest feedback on:
- Would love any insights or out of the box thinking on breaking into communities that are skeptical of AI — or any other angle I might be missing entirely.
- Any experience targeting US audience from Southeast Asia?
- How do you navigate AI-skeptical communities when your product IS the AI?
Still figuring most of this out week by week. Any thoughts appreciated.
yeah ran into this exact thing. the communities that'd love an AI tool are the same ones that nuke anything smelling like AI promo lol. so dont show up as the "AI tool guy", just be a member who happens to post sick cards. let people ask how you made them, then it's a conversation not an ad. have you tried just posting the output with zero mention of the tool?
eh the ai bans are real but people in those subs still share cool ai stuff all the time, they just turn on you the second it feels like an ad. so theres nothing stopping you from posting, just dont do it like a guy launching a product. show the cards, dont mention oricards at all for a while, let someone ask. its slow and kind of annoying ngl. or fwiw discord might be easier than reddit for this, smaller rooms, you can just be a regular and people see your stuff over time. idk depends how patient you are
You’re facing a positioning challenge more than a product challenge.
The communities you mentioned often see AI through the lens of:
“mass-produced content replacing human creativity.”
So direct promotion triggers resistance immediately.
But your actual customer value proposition sounds closer to:
lowering prototype costs
helping indie creators test ideas faster
enabling solo builders to experiment visually
That framing matters a lot.
Also respect the honesty about distribution. Most founders underestimate how hard audience acquisition is compared to building.
https://teams.live.com/l/invite/FAAk3iOSJkDyS11JQE?v=g1
Really appreciate this, the positioning vs product distinction is something I've been
thinking about but hadn't framed this clearly.
"Lowering prototype costs" hits differently than "AI card generator."
Going to rethink how I present this to indie devs and tabletop creators specifically. Thanks for taking the time to share this.