xavier_

What kind of short videos did you make ? I'm curious of how tiktok can be leverage for B2B tools

Well that's two different things. Having your own VPN is trustworthy, if you want privacy it's another thing.

The best solution is to build it yourself on a cheap VPS. It's really not that hard

And now he's crying on Twitter because it's "super slow"…

Buy a Mac

The easiest way to do it is by leveraging the existent communities. Search for places where your potential customers hang out and start to help people, ask for feedback.

I did it for all my last products, that's clearly the easiest way to start getting your first users.

I curated a list of 400+ places to post your startup [1]. Getting your first 1000 users aren't that difficult when you know where to find them.

What i do is:

- Post to startup directories (brings some traffic and some shout-out)

- Post to communities, to better understand your customers and make friends

- Create some content around your product and post it to Facebook groups, big Sub reddit and blog that allow guest post.

That is pretty much how i get my early users to get the first feedback and iterate on my first version. Then I go with ads and newsletter sponsorship.

[1] https://spreadtheworld.net

Reddit is for people, not for brands (except ads). Like many other forums, it's better to speak as a person.

I feel like it's the same on social media

It can happen sometimes yes, I've been roasted in a bad on some subs before.

That's really not the majority. What i understood afterwards was: the guys there weren't my target, my product didn't help them at all. They felt like I'm promoting out of the blue, and i got my ass kicked.

I just moved on and found a most targeted subs

What do you call "famous"?

I started reddit a year ago, I now have 3k karma and didn't notice any difference...

I missed that one! I need to hang out more here

Woo, 10% conversion rate on FBads! It's huge!

No links were allowed?

Some subs are super strict, like /r/Startups and that's ok. I still participate and find a lot of value in them!

That's true, I still get a few visitors per day from the post I made on /r/nocode.

If your post is in the top of the month/year/all time it will bring you visitors on the long term. (I guess they're also better on Google search. Not sure tho)

That's less drivable than ads for sure. I should probably compare the two ROI and see what's the more efficient!

Interesting! You mean facebook & instagram ads or groups/regular posts?

Probably yes :)

I discovered with this thread that the mod tools are not unified on Reddit!

Hum… I did validate the idea of my product on Reddit way before it was built.

It really matters on what sub you choose at what stage. Some subs are ok with half baked products, some will trash you!

Just spend some time on your target subs, try to understand what works, what don't and post accordingly!

Yep, that's exaclty what I wanted to pass in this post!

Reddit loves memes and the subs of fun/meme are super huge!

Didn't tried it yet :)

You shouldn't see Reddit as a whole. Every subs has his own particular culture.

Just select a few of them and start to participate!

I got 400 visitors from a small subreddit (/r/nocode). I got a few thousands visitors from a post on /r/startups or /r/Entrepreneur several times!

But you're right, a big subreddit gives you about the same amount of traffic than HN.

That's pretty much it yes! And don't select the same subs depending of the stage of your project (idea/testing/traction).

Some subreddits are super hard yes (like /r/roastmystartup), but that doesn't mean that all of them are!

In fact, I've been roasted in a few subs and get some really good feedback from others. If you want to validate an idea, just get as much feedback as possible. The negative ones are the better most of the time. You learn a lot from them!

Don't ask them what they want, ask them what problem they have!

That's your job, as a founder, to design a solution that fix the problem. (It can be as small as a landing page with your value prop on it and some fake demo)

That's the bad way to doing it IMHO. You don't bring anything to the community and you probably don't get results either.

It is hard to know what content will go viral for sure. From my experience is pretty much correlated to the value you bring to the community. If you're honest, transparent and teach something, relate your experience or your difficulties then you get engagement.

Yes, that's the key!

Very much depends of the subs. I spend a lot of time on /r/startups, the rules are super enforced. Way more than /r/Entrepreneur for instance.

The goal isn't to spam Reddit, but to leverage the audience without trespassing the rules. And, like all social networks the key is to help others (for real) and create value

I'm not trying to "game" anyone, I'm an indiehacker that's why I write it that way.