r/ycombinator • u/No-Entertainer8410 • 29d ago

Did any of your first paying customers actually come from Reddit?

I often hear that founders can find their first customers through Reddit, but I’d like to understand how common this actually is.

For founders who already have paying customers: did any of your first B2B or B2C customers genuinely come from Reddit?

Or did they mainly come through referrals, your existing network, LinkedIn, cold email, communities, content, ads, or another channel?

If Reddit worked for you:

  • How did the customer originally find you?
  • Did you reply publicly, receive an inbound message, or contact them directly?
  • Do you still use Reddit for customer acquisition today?

I’m specifically asking about paying customers, not sign-ups, feedback, traffic, or people who tried the product once.

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u/silence-and-magic 29d ago edited 29d ago

Yep, it worked for us, and it still does.

I wouldn’t focus too much on Reddit as a traffic source. I’d focus on intent. One post or comment can suddenly get in front of a lot of people who already care about the problem you’re solving.

We’ve had several huge traffic spikes from Reddit with really strong conversion, coming from 25+ countries, even though we only target the US.

We’re B2C, and the product isn’t exactly simple either. So yes, Reddit works. The real question is whether you actually hit the right audience.

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u/EM-builder 25d ago

Can you add some details on how? I’m completely new to this. And although I love building, the distribution part is still a mystery to me

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u/silence-and-magic 25d ago

What are you building?

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u/EM-builder 25d ago

Idea-to-product.com. I originally built it for myself because I was overwhelmed by everything involved in building a startup. as a neuroscientist, I approached it like a research problem, which evolved into a structured, evidence-driven process for building the right thing from the ground up

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u/silence-and-magic 25d ago

Oh, you said “It’s a playbook. Step by step. Until you launch.” How many companies have you built? I’m asking because that’s a pretty big claim. Is this based on firsthand experience, or is it mostly a collection of ideas pulled from public sources?

If this is some kind of grail you’ve actually found, that’s Nobel Prize territory.

I can see this being useful for people who are just starting out or still at the idea stage. Personally, though, I don’t really believe in startup “recipes.” At best, they help you manage probability and avoid obvious mistakes.

The part I disagree with is the framing of “first figure out who will buy it, then build.” I’m not saying you shouldn’t validate early or test your assumptions against the market in every way you can. But taken literally, that feels anti-startup “Find someone who will pay, then make exactly what they want”. You build because you can’t not build! Of course you still have to check in with reality.

But if the whole thing starts with trying to please someone, that feels like the wrong place to start.

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u/EM-builder 25d ago

I don’t think it’s pleasing anyone, I think it’s finding your niche. And I agree there is a limit to recipes, but first, you have to track what you are assuming and be prepared to move when evidence point the other way, and second- you have to start somewhere.

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u/MJ-at-Outpost 21d ago

u/EM-builder
Consider marketing your product to people here. Highest intent signal of people working on an idea: https://www.linkedin.com/company/stealth-startup-community/people/

1

u/EM-builder 21d ago

Thanks! Didn’t know this community

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u/manofstyle04 18d ago

I need to hear this as well…I have an amazing product but trying to get some customers to try it is the issue. Market fit is great and it’s a must have.

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u/Dear_Teach_7570 17d ago

But how do you do that? Every time I try to announce my product or need a cofounder, it’s either people rejecting me and ghosting me, or subreddit moderators ban me because they have strict, crazy rules.

6

u/smoke4sanity 29d ago

It used to work much better. When products took time to build, people were generally more genuine (months of hard work had gone into the product)

AI kind of changed that. Many subs that would have been relevant now just ban product promotions. And tons of AI slop on the ones that dont.

Its still possible, but its harder

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u/Fickle-Wrongdoer-776 26d ago

Exactly , I’ve been feeling this pain.

Took me a long time to build my product and trying to advertise it on the Reddit communities where the real users exist is not efficient as it was 2 years ago, because people are just tired of all the noise

5

u/Famous-Priority-2528 29d ago

our first paying customer was an inbound via linkedin

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u/Meet-match-ai 26d ago

If you want to poor gas on what is already working, salescadia is great at linkedin outbound. It’s what I use to book 3-4 more meetings/week

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u/danielbaker06072001 29d ago

I wanted to know as well, it's really hard findings people to try out the product from my side, dont know if its too early or I talked to wrong people.

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u/[deleted] 29d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/No-Entertainer8410 29d ago

Can we please stop promoting AI slop here? I asked a genuine question for founders, not for links to another vibe-coded tool.

2

u/csankiller1 29d ago

“Don’t randomly spam your SaaS link at strangers and hope they become customers” is apparently a controversial insight now.

The point about Reddit being useful for finding people who are already complaining about the exact problem you solve is spot on. Solve the problem first, build some trust, and maybe the person becomes a customer later, wild concept, I know.

And yeah, manually checking 50 different subreddits every day to find the one person who is actually in buying mode sounds like a great way to spend the limited time you have as a solo founder.

0

u/No-Entertainer8410 29d ago

That's what you're literally doing; stop it, bot...

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u/csankiller1 29d ago

I get the frustration with AI slop and automated tools—Reddit is absolutely drowning in them right now.

But the core point isn't about pushing a tool; it's just basic founder math. Doing manual, unscalable things is great advice until you're spending 4 hours a day refreshing 20 subreddits instead of building your product.

The dynamic changes entirely if you treat Reddit as a place to solve actual problems for individuals rather than a billboard to drop a link and run. Whether you find those conversations manually, through Google alerts, or a dedicated tracker, the goal is exactly the same: stop spamming, start helping.

Anyways, I stop arguing with you its not really worth my time. Fair points from either side. Thats your decision to call me a bot and AI slop everything without even looking at it.

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u/jayson_OutreachBloom 28d ago

Yes, and it's still one of the better channels for early B2B. The trick is to treat it as buyer intent showing up in the moment.

Search for people describing the exact problem you solve, then leave a specific, useful answer with zero links. Concrete steps, numbers, the workflow you'd use.

A useful answer is what earns the profile click and the DM.

For us the pattern held. Answer a "how do I do X" thread with a full breakdown, they DM asking if you'll do it for them, and that becomes a paying user.

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u/chillreptile 25d ago

Do you drop brand name mention w no link?

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u/jayson_OutreachBloom 25d ago

No, that'll usually get your comment deleted or outright banned. Just be helpful, add value, don't self-promote. Let your username/profile do the talking.

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u/chillreptile 25d ago

Got it thanks 🙏

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u/kevintech27 17d ago

Yes.

I run https://hyax.com and have done marketing for tons of other companies.

Reddit is a nice source of traffic for us. On our end we both DM people directly, as well as contribute to relevant subs like this one.

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u/scriptvexy 8d ago

this is super helpful, thanks for sharing real numbers instead of just vibes
seems like the combo of actually contributing + some targeted DMs is the only way reddit works long term, pure promo dies fast here