December 2025: Zero customers. Zero revenue. Zero traction.

I had a working product. Clean UI. Good docs. Pricing that made sense.

But nobody knew it existed.

Tried Twitter. Got 23 followers in 2 months. Posted daily. Crickets.

Tried LinkedIn. Wrote thought leadership posts. Got 40 views (half from my connections).

Tried cold email. 500 emails sent. 12 responses. 1 demo. Zero customers.

Then I tried Reddit. And everything changed.

The First Week: Getting Banned Twice

Let me be honest about how this started: badly.

My first Reddit post was in r/SaaS. Title: "I built a Reddit tool for finding customers."

Removed in 18 minutes. Reason: "No self-promotion."

Okay, fair. I tried again in r/entrepreneur with a softer approach: "Anyone else struggling to find customers? I built something that might help."

Shadowbanned. Didn't even know it happened until I checked in incognito mode. My post was invisible to everyone except me.

Third attempt in r/startups: "Show HN: Reddit Customer Finder."

Permanently banned from the subreddit.

Yeah. That was week one.

The Shift: From Selling to Solving

After three failures, I had a choice: give up on Reddit, or figure out what I was doing wrong.

I spent two days just lurking. Reading. Watching how other founders talked about their products without getting banned.

Pattern I noticed: the successful ones never sold. They solved.

Instead of "Check out my Reddit tool!", they wrote stuff like:

"Spent 6 months trying to find customers. Cold email didn't work. Ads were too expensive. What worked: finding where my customers were already talking about their problems. Built a simple tool to monitor Reddit keywords. Nothing fancy but saves me 10 hours a week."

See the difference? One's a pitch. The other's a story with a tool mentioned as part of the solution.

That's when I changed my entire approach.

What Actually Worked: The 4-Part System

Part 1: Find Where Your Customers Are Actually Talking

I stopped posting in obvious subreddits like r/entrepreneur and r/startups. Too crowded. Too many founders trying to promote. Moderators are trigger-happy.

Instead, I searched for my customers' actual pain points:

"how to find customers"
"struggling with lead generation"
"reddit for marketing"
"where to find first users"

But not just in big subreddits. I went niche:

r/B2BMarketing (8K members, way more qualified than r/entrepreneur)
r/GrowthHacking (people actively looking for tactics)
r/SaaS (founders with budget)
r/indiehackers (my exact target audience)

The key: find threads where people are asking "How do I solve X?" RIGHT NOW. Not old threads. Fresh ones where the person is still looking for answers.

Part 2: Provide Value First, Mention Product Last

This is where most founders fail. They jump straight to "use my tool."

I started writing genuinely helpful answers. Here's the template that worked:

"Yeah I had the same problem last year.

Tried cold email first. Response rate was under 1%. Then tried LinkedIn outreach but got rate-limited after 50 messages per day.

What worked: finding where my customers were already having conversations. For me that was Reddit and niche Slack communities.

The trick is monitoring keywords, not just posting randomly. Set up alerts for phrases like 'looking for customers' or 'how to get users'. When someone mentions it, jump in with a helpful answer within the first hour.

I built a tool to automate this keyword monitoring. Searches multiple subreddits, filters by engagement, sends alerts. Nothing fancy but saves about 10 hours a week.

Has a 3-day trial if you want to test it. $9.99/month after that. UI could use work but it gets the job done."

Notice what I did:

Shared my actual struggle (builds trust)
Mentioned what didn't work (credibility)
Explained the strategy before the tool
Positioned tool as "scrappy solution" not "revolutionary product"
Admitted limitations ("UI could use work")
Focused on time saved, not features

This approach converted at 15-20%. Way better than any ad I've run.

Part 3: Engage Early and Often

Timing matters on Reddit. A lot.

Comments on 2-day-old threads get buried. Nobody sees them. But if you comment within the first 1-2 hours, you're near the top. More visibility = more clicks.

I needed a way to find relevant threads fast. Manual searching took 2-3 hours daily. Not sustainable.

That's when I started using a Reddit monitoring tool to track keywords. Set up alerts for my target phrases across 15 subreddits. Every morning I'd get a digest of new opportunities.

Reduced my search time from 2 hours to 15 minutes. The tool paid for itself in saved time within the first week.

Part 4: Track Everything

I'm a spreadsheet nerd. I tracked every single Reddit interaction:

Which subreddit
What thread
What I commented
How many upvotes
How many clicks (using UTM parameters)
How many signups
How many converted to paid

This data showed me what actually worked vs what felt like it worked.

Surprising findings:

r/B2BMarketing converted 3x better than r/entrepreneur despite having 50x fewer members. Smaller, more qualified audience.

Comments with personal stories converted 2x better than comments with just advice.

Threads with 5-15 comments were the sweet spot. Too few comments = not enough visibility. Too many = your comment gets buried.

Admitting limitations increased conversion. "UI isn't perfect but it works" performed better than "best tool for X."

The monitoring system I built became essential. I packaged it as Wappkit Reddit - a desktop tool that searches multiple subreddits, filters by engagement, and sends alerts. Nothing fancy but it saves about 10 hours a week. Has a 3-day trial, then $9.99/month.

The Results: 100 Customers in 90 Days

Here's the real breakdown:

Week 1-2: Got banned twice, but got first 3 customers from one good comment in r/indiehackers

Week 3-4: 12 more customers from consistent engagement in r/B2BMarketing and r/SaaS

Week 5-8: 31 customers as I refined my comment template and found better subreddits

Week 9-12: 54 more customers as old comments started ranking in Google

Total: 100 customers in 90 days. Zero ad spend.

Revenue: $999/month MRR (100 customers × $9.99/month)

Time invested: About 30 minutes per day (after I got the system down)

Conversion funnel:

2,847 clicks from Reddit comments
512 trial signups (18% conversion)
100 paid customers (19.5% trial-to-paid)

Not amazing numbers, but way better than my $2,000 Facebook Ads experiment that got me 3 signups and zero customers.

The Compound Effect: Old Comments Keep Working

Here's the part that surprised me most.

Comments I wrote in January are still bringing customers in March. Why? Because they rank in Google.

When someone searches "how to find customers on Reddit" on Google, my comment from 2 months ago shows up in the results. They click through, read my answer, and sign up.

That's the compound effect. One good comment brings customers for months.

Compare that to ads where you pay for every single click and the traffic stops the second you stop paying.

What Didn't Work (Save Your Time)

I tested a bunch of tactics that failed:

Reddit Ads: Spent $300, got 60 clicks, 2 signups, 0 customers. Reddit users actively distrust ads.

Posting in r/SideProject: Only got other founders, not paying customers. Everyone there is building, nobody's buying.

Mass posting the same comment: Instant shadowban. Reddit tracks duplicate content.

Fake accounts for upvoting: Got caught, shadowbanned, not worth the risk.

Posting without engaging: If you only post and never comment on other threads, you look like a spammer.

The Real Strategy: Be Useful First

Every founder I studied who succeeded on Reddit followed the same playbook:

70% value, 30% promotion. Most of your comment should solve the problem. Product mention should feel natural.

Admit limitations. "Not perfect, but works for me" beats "revolutionary solution" every time.

Follow up in DMs. If someone's interested, move to DMs. Offer to help them set up. Be human.

Track what works. Not all subreddits convert equally. Double down on what works.

Be patient. This isn't a growth hack. It's a grind. You need to show up consistently for weeks.

The Tools I Actually Used

You don't need a huge stack. Here's what I used:

Reddit monitoring: Wappkit Reddit for finding opportunities fast. $9.99/month, 3-day trial. Runs locally so no rate limits.

Tracking: Google Sheets for tracking engagement and conversion rates.

Templates: Notion for storing my best-performing comment templates.

That's it. Don't overcomplicate it.

The Mistakes That Cost Me Time

Looking back, here's what I'd do differently:

Mistake 1: Starting in big subreddits. Should have gone niche from day one. r/B2BMarketing with 8K members converted way better than r/entrepreneur with 1M members.

Mistake 2: Not tracking early enough. Wasted 3 weeks before I started tracking what actually worked. Could have optimized faster.

Mistake 3: Being too promotional. My early comments were too salesy. Took me 2 weeks to find the right balance.

Mistake 4: Not using tools sooner. Spent 2 weeks manually searching before I got a monitoring tool. Wasted so much time.

Mistake 5: Giving up after getting banned. Almost quit after the third ban. Glad I didn't.

The Real Numbers: Time and Money

Let's be honest about what this actually cost:

Time invested:

Week 1-2: 3-4 hours/day (learning, getting banned, figuring it out)
Week 3-8: 1-2 hours/day (engaging, refining approach)
Week 9-12: 30 minutes/day (system was dialed in)

Money invested:

Reddit monitoring tool: $9.99/month
Trial subscriptions testing other tools: ~$100 (wasted)
Reddit Ads experiment: $300 (wasted)

Total: About $410 and 150 hours over 90 days.

Return: 100 customers × $9.99 = $999/month MRR = $11,988/year

Not bad for 90 days of work.

What I'd Tell Someone Starting Today

If you're at zero customers and considering Reddit, here's what I'd tell you:

Week 1: Just lurk. Read successful posts. Study how founders talk about their products without getting banned.

Week 2: Start commenting on other people's threads. Provide value. Don't mention your product yet. Build karma and credibility.

Week 3: Start mentioning your product naturally in helpful comments. Use the 70/30 rule (70% value, 30% promotion).

Week 4+: Track what works. Double down on subreddits and comment styles that convert. Cut what doesn't work.

Don't:

Post in obvious subreddits (r/entrepreneur, r/startups)
Lead with your product
Use the same comment everywhere
Give up after getting banned once

Do:

Find niche subreddits where your customers actually hang out
Provide genuine value first
Admit your product's limitations
Track everything
Be patient

The Unsexy Truth

Reddit isn't a magic button.

It's not a growth hack where you post once and get 1000 customers.

It's a grind. You need to show up consistently, provide value without expecting anything back, build reputation over weeks, get comfortable with rejection.

But here's why it works:

Reddit users have HIGH INTENT. When someone asks "how do I find customers for my SaaS", they're actively looking for solutions RIGHT NOW. Not browsing. Not researching. Looking to solve a problem today.

And if you can help them solve that problem, they'll remember you.

That's the compound effect. One good comment brings customers for months. Do that 50 times and you have a sustainable customer acquisition channel.

Not sexy. But it works.

Where I Am Now (3 Months Later)

It's been 3 months since I hit 100 customers.

Current stats:

247 paying customers
$2,465/month MRR
Still spending 30 minutes/day on Reddit
About 40% of new customers come from old comments ranking in Google

Reddit went from "that place where I got banned" to my primary customer acquisition channel.

And I'm still just getting started.

If you're building a SaaS and struggling to find customers, give Reddit a real shot. Not a half-hearted "post once and see what happens" attempt. A real 90-day commitment.

Track everything. Provide genuine value. Be patient.

The customers are there. You just have to show up and help them.

That's the game.

How I Found My First 100 Customers on Reddit in 90 Days (Real Numbers)