Plan on Reddit giving you your first 20 or 30 users and your most honest feedback, not all 100. The rest come from the people those first users know, from direct messages to people who described your problem, and from whatever else you try. What Reddit does better than most channels is tell you, in public, what people hate about the way they solve the problem today.
Below is a four-week routine for software and app founders, a rule for when you may link to your product, and a way of counting users that won't flatter you. It differs from selling services to clients on Reddit: you are looking for early users and feedback, not invoices. Everything is done from your own account.
What early users want from Reddit
On Reddit people don't wait for a launch announcement. They complain about a spreadsheet, ask whether a tool exists, or share a workaround that took them three hours. Those posts are your market research and your first invitation list. A founder who reads them for a week learns more about the problem than a month of guessing.
The mistake that sinks most launches is arriving with an announcement. A post that says "I built X, please try it" in a general community looks like an ad, and it gets removed or ignored. The people who respond well to a new product are people who have already described the problem to you.
Finding the right communities
Look for communities where people have the problem, not where founders talk about startups. Tobias built a web app that tracks warranty expiry dates and maintenance schedules for small rental-property owners. His buyers hang out in landlord and small-property communities, not in startup forums. He also checks one place for builders, where people expect to see new projects.
Search your problem phrased the way a user would say it, then list five communities and note each one's size, how active it is, and what its rules say about self-promotion and about showing what you built. How to find the right subreddits for your business goes step by step.
Sharing without breaking rules
Every community sets its own rule on promotion, and Reddit's site-wide rules ban spam and vote manipulation. Some subreddits exist so people can show what they built, and r/SideProject is one of them. Others allow it only in a weekly thread. Some ban it entirely. Rules change, so read the sidebar and pinned posts on the day you post, not last month.
Here is a rule that keeps you safe. You may mention or link your product when one of these is true: someone asked for a tool like it, the community has a place that is meant for showing projects, or a moderator has said yes. In every case, say that you built it. Never write as if you were a satisfied customer, never ask friends to vote or comment on your post, and never use a second account. Self-promotion rules for business owners explains the usual patterns.
Asking for feedback, not signups
"What do you think of my product?" gets polite nothing. A specific question gets answers: "I'm building a tool that reminds landlords when a water heater is 8 years old. Does that match a problem you have, or is it already handled somewhere?" The people who reply in detail are your invitation list. Reply to every comment, including the harsh ones.
When someone describes the problem and asks if a tool exists, answer honestly: "I'm building one. It does X but not Y yet. Want to try it? I'll sit in on the first week." That is a better invitation than any announcement.
A four-week routine
Spend about 45 minutes a day, five days a week.
- Week 1, read and help. Join five communities, read their rules, and answer five questions with no mention of your product. Keep a list of the complaints you see more than twice.
- Week 2, answer and ask. Answer ten more questions. In one community that allows it, post a research question about how people handle the problem today. Write down every workaround.
- Week 3, show it where it's allowed. Use a space meant for showing projects or a weekly thread, with a short post: what it does, who it's for, what's missing, what you want to learn. Message only the people who said they wanted a tool. Offer each a 15-minute call to set them up.
- Week 4, listen and fix. Talk to five users for 15 minutes each. Fix the top three problems and post an update saying what changed because of their feedback.
If you want the threads where people ask for a tool delivered to you, Conversations in Rocketship finds Reddit threads where someone asks for what your product does and drafts a reply and a DM in your voice. You edit and post them from your own account. It never posts, votes or messages for you.
Handling criticism
Early users on Reddit are blunt. Do not defend. Reply with one line, "That's fair, which part felt wrong?", and then listen. If the criticism is right, say what you will change, change it, and tell them. A founder who answers a hostile comment well often wins more users from the people reading than from the commenter. If the criticism is wrong or abusive, don't argue, and leave it.
Counting users honestly
A signup is not a user. Decide what a user is before you count: someone who completed the one action your product exists for. Tobias's number after four weeks: 62 signups, 31 who added a property, and 12 who came back in the second week. His real count is 12 active users, not 62, and the 31 who stalled are where he should spend his next conversations.
To reach 100 active users from there, he needs to reproduce what worked. Take the sources of the 12: how many came from Reddit replies, how many from direct messages, how many from friends of friends. Then spend the next month on the largest source. See how to get your first 10 customers and the first customer when nobody knows you for the other channels, and how to get beta users and how to find early adopters if you are still earlier than that.
Reddit gives feedback; email can give volume. Rocketship finds the buyers by name, emails them from your own Gmail, follows up, and books the meeting on its own. Plans that get you customers start at $24.99 a month (Launch), and every monthly plan starts with a 7-day free trial, card required.