3 Founders Who Found 100+ Customers on Reddit (Real Numbers, Real Stories)

I used to think Reddit marketing was a myth.

You know the stories. "I posted once and got 10,000 users!" Yeah, right. Probably fake. Or lucky. Or both.

Then I talked to three founders who actually did it. Not influencers. Not growth hackers with massive followings. Just regular people building products and trying to find customers.

They shared their numbers. Their mistakes. The stuff that actually worked.

Here's what I learned.

Story 1: The "Low Comment" Strategy That Found 60 Customers

Met this founder on Indie Hackers. He'd been trying Reddit for six months. Spent hours writing detailed posts. Posted in r/entrepreneur, r/startups, all the big subreddits.

Got maybe 20 upvotes total. Zero customers.

Then he changed one thing.

Instead of posting, he started searching for threads with fewer than 10 comments. Not the viral posts with 200 replies. The quiet ones where someone asked a question and only got 3-4 responses.

His logic: "A post with 200 comments means 200 people fighting for attention. Even if your response is genuinely helpful, it's buried at the bottom where nobody scrolls."

So he filtered for low-engagement threads. Found people actively asking for solutions. Showed up early with actual help.

Three months later: 60 customers. Not leads. Paying customers.

The tool he built to find these threads? Just a simple desktop app that searches multiple subreddits and filters by comment count. Nothing fancy. But it saved him from manually scrolling through hundreds of posts every day.

Story 2: MediaFast's $2,000 MRR From Reddit Posts

MediaFast is a content distribution tool. They bootstrapped to $2,000 monthly recurring revenue almost entirely through Reddit.

No ads. No cold outreach. Just showing up in the right conversations.

Their founder told me the key was specificity. Don't post "I built a marketing tool." Post "I built a tool that auto-posts your blog to 10 platforms because I was tired of copying the same content 10 times."

The more specific the pain point, the better the response.

One of their posts hit 14,000 views. Got them 60 of their first 100 users. Not because it went viral. Because it described a problem so specific that people thought "wait, this person gets it."

They also mentioned using a Reddit marketing tool to track mentions of competitors and pain points. Set up keyword alerts. Responded within hours, not days. Speed mattered more than perfect responses.

The tool costs $9.99/month after a 3-day trial. Pays for itself if it finds you even one customer.

Story 3: The Founder Who Spent $2,400 on Google Ads (And Got Nothing)

This one hit close to home because I've been there.

Founder spent $2,400 on Google Ads. Got 127 clicks. Three signups. One was his mom.

The math wasn't mathing.

So he tried Reddit. Spent $0 on ads. Found 47 real conversations with people who actually needed what he built. Four became paying customers. Twelve more in the pipeline.

His approach: Search for pain points, not product categories.

Bad search: "reddit marketing tools"
Good search: "manually searching reddit for customers taking forever"

The second one finds people literally describing your product without knowing it exists.

He also stopped using brand new accounts. His first account was 2 days old. Got filtered automatically in most subreddits. Had to wait 30 days and build karma first.

Lesson learned: Reddit rewards patience. It punishes shortcuts.

What These Stories Have in Common

All three founders did the same things:

1. They searched instead of posted

Most people post once and hope it goes viral. These founders searched for existing conversations. Found people already asking for help.

2. They showed up early

A post from 6 hours ago with 3 comments might explode to 200 comments by tomorrow. Getting in early means your comment stays near the top.

3. They were genuinely helpful first

If more than 10% of your comments mention your product, you're doing it wrong. They spent weeks just helping people. Built credibility. Then when they did share their tool, people actually listened.

4. They automated the boring part

None of them spent 3 hours a day manually scrolling Reddit. They used tools to find relevant threads fast. Set up keyword alerts. Checked notifications every 4-6 hours.

The ROI was ridiculous compared to manual searching.

The Subreddits That Actually Convert

Not all subreddits are equal. r/entrepreneur has 3.2M members but most posts get 5 upvotes. r/SaaS has 100K members and posts regularly hit 200+ upvotes.

Smaller, focused communities beat massive generic ones every time.

Subreddit	Members	Engagement	Conversion
r/SaaS	100K	High	Best
r/startups	1.5M	Mixed	Medium
Industry-specific	10K-50K	High	Highest

One founder I talked to found three customers by monitoring competitor mentions. When someone complained about Competitor X, he offered a genuine alternative. These people were already in buying mode. They switched within 48 hours.

Mistakes They All Made (So You Don't Have To)

Using brand new accounts - Got filtered automatically. Had to wait 30 days and build karma.

Posting the same comment everywhere - Reddit's spam filters caught this instantly. Got shadowbanned.

Being too promotional - If every comment mentions your product, you look like spam.

Ignoring subreddit rules - Each community is different. Read the rules. Follow them.

Giving up too early - First two weeks usually get zero results. Week three is when things start clicking.

Is This Sustainable?

Honest answer: It takes time upfront.

All three founders spent 10+ hours per week on Reddit in the beginning. That's not scalable long-term.

But they automated the search part. Built templates for common responses. Some hired help with monitoring.

The goal isn't to spam Reddit at scale. It's to have genuine conversations at scale. There's a difference.

Should You Try This?

If you're a bootstrapped founder with more time than money, yes.

If you have a big marketing budget and need fast results, probably not. Reddit is a long game.

If you're willing to spend 2-3 months building credibility before seeing results, definitely yes.

The founders who succeed on Reddit aren't the ones with the best products. They're the ones who show up consistently, add value first, and build real relationships.

Getting Started Today

Don't overthink this.

Pick three subreddits where your customers hang out. Spend 30 minutes reading the top posts from this month. Notice what gets upvoted. Notice what gets ignored.

Then search for one pain point your product solves. Find 3-5 recent posts. Write genuine, helpful responses. Don't mention your product yet.

Do this for two weeks. Build karma. Build credibility. Then start naturally mentioning your solution when it's genuinely relevant.

It's not a growth hack. It's not a shortcut. It's just showing up, being helpful, and building trust.

But if you do it right, it's one of the highest ROI channels available in 2025.

Just don't burn $2,400 on Google Ads first like that third founder did.