How to use Reddit + Polywork for Early Idea Validation and User Acquisition

A week ago I launched a coming soon page for https://brandesaurus.com/

The purpose of Brandesaurus is too accent my main branding startup (for us brandesaurus is a marketing tool but for our target audience it's a research tool)

IMMEDIATELY after launching the coming soon page I was happy to have gotten it up within a day however then I realized I needed to drive traffic to the page so it could begin collecting emails.

PS You can see brandesaurus's analytics here: https://plausible.io/brandesaurus.com/

------PAUSE RIGHT HERE--------

Many times when entrepreneurs want to start a new project they either go all in with development (which can cause problems later) or they try to get early validation signals that the project is worth continuing to work on.

My team decided to go with validation experiments so we could track at what point the idea wouldn't be worth continuing.

With a goal of 250 visitors and 5 emails we set out to start marketing (this is a low conversion rate but we didn't want to spend hours/days designing or use a template like we normally do)

------UNPAUSE RIGHT HERE--------

The channels that I'd heard have helped super new ideas to drive traffic are:
Reddit
Product Hunt
IndieHackers
Polywork

(I always try to add one new platform to my list so that I keep my marketing mindset flexible)

My team had determined our experiment would last 2 weeks which would be enough time for about 5-10 posts on each platform (depending upon community engagement).

The interesting part is that after 3 Reddit Posts, 1 Polywork post, and 4 IndieHacker posts we were able to overachieve on our core goal netting us over 20 emails compared to the 5 we were seeking.

Below are details on what I feel we did right and how I feel we'll continue using these platforms to help grow visitors to brandesaurus:

Please note everything below could be wrong these are guesses based on a small marketing experiment for a brand new idea.

------REDDIT
-Setup profile with a fun avatar, background, description, and included link to brandesaurus but put value proposition as the name for the link
-Made sure to build up an account with at least 50 commenting karma before posting
-First post didn't have any links and was focused on the community
-Second post included link and asked for community to roast landing page
-Replied to comments on my posts

Reddit posts:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Startup_Ideas/comments/10zowrw/help_roast_my_dinothemed_coming_soon_page_so_hard/

https://www.reddit.com/r/logodesign/comments/10zqhv3/any_and_all_feedback_appreciated_for_this_logo/

https://www.reddit.com/r/SideProject/comments/110ix7f/brandesaurus_the_internets_thesaurus_of_brands/

------INDIEHACKERS
-Created Brandesaurus coming soon post
-Created post asking how to find early adopters
-Commented and shared link as an example on various posts related to coming soon/traffic/visitors
-Added Brandesaurus as a product to my profile
-Created initial roast my landing page post
-Replied to comments on my posts

IndieHacker posts:
https://www.indiehackers.com/post/the-internet-doesnt-have-a-brand-thesaurus-so-i-decided-to-make-one-5914c6763f

https://www.indiehackers.com/post/how-do-you-find-early-adopters-for-a-coming-soon-page-5b31979771

https://www.indiehackers.com/post/help-roast-my-dino-themed-coming-soon-page-so-hard-it-goes-extinct-7ee1207a8e

------POLYWORK
-Created account and explored platform
-Made an opportunity post looking for beta testers asking people to Roast
-Replied to comments on my post

Polywork Post:
https://www.polywork.com/opportunities/an13pmIy?autofocus=true#gig-comment-section

Brandesaurus was also shared to Twitter and Mastadon however I don't have any signals that show that these two channels have been driving any major traffix.

------OUTCOME------
By doing the above we were able to get 20+ emails and 250+ visitors.

With 2-3 weeks left before the website's soft launch our team now has time and flexibility to optimize what's been working but also to try a few experiments on new channels.

------WHAT'S NEXT------
Our next goal is hitting 400 visitors and 15 emails within 3 weeks of launching the main site (aiming for launching in the first week of March).

To perform this experiment we'll need to finish the core site, maintain pre-launch marketing, and then launch plus market the v0 version of the site.

We've been gathering a lot of brand data while also listening to feedback from potential users. It seems that people like the base idea enough to engage with our very early brand, however, the site doesn't build enough trust with the viewer to get emails at a good conversion rate.

To grow on site engagement we'll need to:
-Update the Coming Soon Page
-Refine our own branding
-Amp up our Brand analysis with unique content
-Create a launch marketing strategy

This'll most likely translate into:
-Updating the coming soon page's front end every 2-3 days
-Talking to my main startup's design/art team to see about the branding
-Researching more about unique brand breakdown content we can offer users
-Documenting then executing on the launch strategy (combination of coda and airtable)
---Continuing to share on Reddit, IndieHackers, and Polywork every 2-3 days
-----Reddit: 1 post every 2-3 days + 5-10 comments per day
-----IndieHackers: 1 post every 2-3 days (switching between general and product oriented) + 3 comments per day
-----Polywork: 1 post per week + (need to figure out commenting)
---Expanding to Discord, Facebook Groups, and LinkedIn Groups (while we have flexibility in the marketing team from hitting our goals)

Thanks for reading!

Core links so you don't have to scroll:
https://brandesaurus.com/
https://plausible.io/brandesaurus.com/