How to get your first 100 customers from reddit without getting banned
i've helped startups get their first 100+ customers and reach $10k mrr through reddit
while doing so, i also got banned a couple of times. so this guide is based on my personal experience
let me first tell you why you should market your startup on reddit
now getting back to what i promised, here's everything i've learned about marketing your startup on reddit
find the right subreddits
go where your icp hangs out. look for subreddits with 10k-50k+ members where people are asking questions, sharing problems and talking about tools in your space
warm up your account
this is the step 90% of people miss and it's the reason they get banned .
if your account has no karma and you start promoting your product on day one, you'll get banned.
if you want to start asap, spend a week just being a normal user. leave 10-15 genuine comments in your target subreddits, upvote stuff you like, drop 2-3 unrelated post. get yourself to 30-50 karma before you mention your product even once.
if you have more time, spend 2-3 weeks and let the account age a bit past that. and keep the ratio sane, for every comment where you mention your product, do 4-5 that are just helpful with nothing in it for you. comment karma matters more than post karma here since it shows you talk to people instead of only posting your own stuff.
it's boring. that's kind of the point. everyone skips it, which is why it works
marketing through posts
filter a subreddit by top posts of all time and study what types of posts work well, then write similar posts
from my experience, there are two types of format that work. the first is long educational posts, how-to guides, a personal story backed by real numbers, a breakdown of a mistake you made, resource lists, contrarian takes.
eg: "i raised $5m, here's what i learned" or "i hit $1m arr, here's how i did it."
the second is offering help.
eg: "i'll do this for free, drop your product below." this type of post generate a lot of traction, but only do it if you can actually help.
marketing through comments
find threads where people are discussing the problem you solve.
there are 4 ways to find threads
1. search for keywords related to your product on google and add site:reddit .com to your query
2. join subreddits where your icp hangs out, open reddit once or twice a day, check posts that appear in your feed and if they're relevant comment on them
3. join subreddits where your icp hangs out, filter top posts by today/this week/month and comment on relevant posts
4. the last and easiest way to find relevant threads is go to okara, drop your website url and let it monitor reddit 24/7 for keywords related to your product and write authentic replies
when you comment, help first. then plug your product naturally "i ran into this exact thing and ended up using x, here's what worked" lands way better than "you should check out x."
if you'd rather not play the subtle game at all, just be the founder openly. use a name that makes it obvious, say something like "i built this so i'm obviously biased, but here's how we think about it and happy to answer anything."
if you don’t know what to comment, here’s a hack
1. open 15-20 reddit threads in your niche
2. take screenshots of the questions and the top replies
3. upload the screenshots to an llm and ask it to analyze why the top replies received more upvotes. what are they doing well? what patterns do they follow? is it because they didn't post a link? is it because they added value first then plugged their product naturally?
4. tell it i want to write high performing replies like these for my brand. give it an an overview of what your brand does, then ask it to write a system prompt you can use
5. paste that system prompt into okara
this takes 20-30 minutes to set up, but it can help you write better reddit replies for years.
how to avoid getting banned
- warm your account
- when promoting your product in comments, do not post links in your comments. this is the fastest way to get banned.
there's one exception. if the comment section is full of people dropping their own tools and links, the community expects it there, so adding yours is fine. I’m talking about posts like what did you build this week? etc
- if you comment on too many posts in a short window, you may get banned
- if you add value first and only mention your product where it’s relevant (without the link), reddit is fine with it.
- not every comment has to be about your product. help people and comment thoughtfully without mentioning your product
- follow each subreddit's rules. some subreddits allow self-promotion, some have weekly threads for promotions, and others don't allow it at all
- write like you're talking to a friend.
- don't drop the same comment across ten threads
- don't post on 1 subreddit a bunch of times in one day
- dont talk about your product back to back. space it out
how to measure attribution when you can't drop links
When you dont post links, it makes tracking harder but not impossible. ask new users "how did you hear about us" during onboarding or on a call. watch google search console for jumps in people searching your brand name. and check your analytics for reddit, chatgpt, perplexity showing up as referrers
if you don't want to spend hours scrolling for the right threads, drop your website into okara and it monitors reddit 24/7, finds the high-intent conversations, and drafts authentic replies you can approve before they go out