Reddit drove 81% of users to my first product. Then they banned me for going on vacation.
I built a group travel app called Stamp'd awhile back. I poured myself into it. It was my passion project and something I wanted to use and do use for my travel.
I got Stamp'd to around 300 users, which felt huge when I was building alone at my kitchen table. But here's what I remember more than anything: I spent $99 on Reddit ads, got 1,448 clicks, a 4.2% CTR, a $0.07 CPC. Every metric the ad platforms celebrate. Then 94% of those clicks bounced off my landing page because my ad promised a game ("beat my score") and my product was group trip planning. Message-product mismatch. I burned $99 to learn that.
That same month, I wrote a single personal Facebook post about Stamp'd. No budget, no design. It drove 25 signups in a day. More than the entire Reddit ad campaign.
That was the moment I stopped believing the generic marketing advice. "Post on Reddit." "Try Twitter." "Maybe Product Hunt." None of it told me which subreddit my specific users were in. Which Discord was active this year. Which message would land for which audience. I was firing blind and paying for the privilege.
So I built ChannelScout. Not as a second passion project. It's the thing I wish had existed when I was trying to market Stamp'd. You describe what you built, ChannelScout returns a ranked list of the exact communities where your people hang out, with fit scores and posting rules and a 30-day roadmap. No guessing. No generic advice.
I was honest with myself about why: Stamp'd is still the passion project I'm building toward. ChannelScout is the tool I need to fund it. Some of us need a second product to finance the first. I figured if it could help me and a few hundred other solo founders who've hit the same wall, that was a fair deal.
On April 19th, I launched ChannelScout. Three Reddit posts: r/SideProject, r/buildinpublic, r/startups. Original copy, no cross-posts, no spam.
All three were removed within minutes. Automod killed them thinking I was hacked because I decided to launch and then head out on vacation and log in outside of the mainland US .
Within minutes (it felt like), my Reddit account was locked. I wrote an appeal at 2am. It got denied. Then the account was permabanned site-wide.
The ironic part: Reddit was my best channel for Stamp'd. About 81% of Stamp'd's users came from organic Reddit posts I wrote as a founder sharing what I'd built. Reddit worked for me. I did it right. I just never expected them to look at my account, see a new product with a link, and blacklist me faster than anyone could read the post.
So I lost my strongest distribution channel for both products at once. Stamp'd traffic cratered. ChannelScout launch went dark.
I won't pretend I haven't cried about this once this week. Maybe twice.
Here's where I am now, four days into the aftermath:
I'm relaunching ChannelScout without Reddit. Product Hunt in two weeks, trying to get hunters and supporters lined up this time. Show HN the same week. This IH post (hi). Discord servers where indie founders actually gather. An honest X presence. Directory listings. Newsletter sponsorships.
I'm accepting that the shortest path isn't always real, even when you've traveled it before.
I'm trying not to take it personally that the platform I built a tool to survive is the one that ended me.
If you're a solo dev who shipped something and doesn't know where to post it: https://channelscout.co. Happy to comp beta testers in exchange for honest feedback. DM me if you're shipping soon.
And if you've got your own "I sabotaged my own launch" story, I'd love to hear it. Those are the stories I actually learn from.
Sarah (also Stamp'd at adventure-seeker.com if you're curious about the passion project)
