This Reddit Post Made Me $3,251 in 4 Days: How to Make Your First Dollar with 0 Followers

Alright, let's get this out of the way first. Yes, these numbers are true. But I got lucky. $3,000 in 4 days is not going to happen to everyone.

But I can confidently say that Reddit alone can kickstart your startup with the right strategy. I know this because I've done it several times now across 4 (3 failed) startups gaining over 1M+ views on my one account:

• logogen.ai ($0 -> $500 in 2 weeks)
• postless.ai ($0 -> $300 MRR in 2 weeks)
• clawz.cloud ($0 -> $150 MRR in 2 days)
• and now aidesigner.ai ($0->$1K MRR in 6 weeks; $1K -> $4K MRR in 5 days)

Now if you're looking at those numbers and thinking they aren't that impressive, then you'd be right! They're not, but it's realistic. Especially when you're first starting out.

Something like half of all businesses don't make a single dollar in their first year. So this strategy will put you ahead of 50% of all businesses in a couple weeks. I'd say that's a solid start.

aight enough said, let's dive in.

Phase 1: Prepping an Account

This is probably the part most people get wrong and is the reason why you're getting instantly banned whenever you try to "promote" your project on Reddit.

100 karma. Create an account and build it up to at LEAST 100 karma. OR better yet, dig up an old account that's already aged and use that one.

Yes this will take some time, but like they say, good things come to those who wait... and put in the effort.

And realisitcally, this doesn't even take that long. In my experience, posts give you karma WAY faster than comments do, so create posts asking genuine questions in popular subreddits (r/SaaS, r/SideProject, r/vibecoding, etc.).

Emphasis on genuine because people on the internet can detect insincerity and ulterior motives incredibly easily. Ask questions that you actuallyhave. Engage naturally and authentically. It's just an overall better experience that way too.

Phase 2: The Visual

Great you have an account with 100 karma? Proceed.

Now it's time to start crafting your post, starting with? The VISUAL. This will be the BULK of the work you do.

Here's what you'll need:

1. A screen recording tool. I use Canvid, not because it's the best one out there, but I got a good deal on a lifetime license and it gets the job done.
2. Capcut. The one and only video editing tool you will ever need ever. Free, easy to use, packed with built in effects and transitions. There is no alternative. period.
3. A visual element built into your product that is EASILY digestible. If your product doesn't have something visual about it that instantly communicates value, you need to start here. For example, SEO tool? show a timelapse of a blog being written live. Trading bot? show a timelapse of your PnL. Cold outreach tool? Show it compiling a spreadsheet of leads live. Regardless of what you're building, this is a must have.
4. A banger song to edit the video to in a montage style. Nothing to intense though or too fast BPM wise.

Great you have all you need, now get to recording. Screen record yourself demo'ing that "visual element" part of your product for as many different use cases as you can think of. Save the best most impressive footage and drop those files into Capcut and we can get on with editing.

Now if you've never edited a video before this part may take some time and practice, but after your first few videos these will only take you like a day to create.

Here are some general rules of thumb:

1. Transition from scene to scene on beat with the music. It just hits different this way. The only transitions you'll need in Capcut are quite literally "Pull In", "Pull Out", plus some kinda swiping transition.
2. Spam a SUPER small "Zoom Lens" effect on literally everything. Super subtle zoom keeps viewers more engaged. It's scientifically proven...by me.
3. Keep the song's audio level to be barely touching the yellow peaks. Red is bad. Yellow is good. No yellow is bad.
4. Your highly engaging visual element should be shown in the video within the first 1-2 seconds or else you'll lose the attention of a ton of people.

Finally, send it around to people you know. Ask for feedback. Is it too long? Too short? What doesn't make sense? Does it communicate value? Iterate and improve based on what your peers say.

Here is an example of a final product that you can use as reference:

Now, if this step is too difficult for you, you CAN hire someone to do this for you for a few hundred dollars, but I'm assuming you're going into this with $0 you want to spend.

Phase 3: Finding the Right Subreddit

Yay! You're done with the video, you made it. Good job the hard part is over.

Now it's time to find the right Subreddits to post in. Here are the MUST HAVE criteria for a subreddit to be suitable to share your project in:

1. There are NO rules against Self Promo. Seriously don't even try it. It's not worth it, you will get hated on to the edge of the world and back.
2. There is evidence of OTHER people posting about their projects and getting support from people.
3. They allow image/video posts. This one should be self explanatory.
4. The Subreddit is in a niche where your target audience lives.
5. The Subreddit gets >=5,000 weekly visitors.

Find as many of these Subreddits that match those criteria as you can, join them early. Bonus points for engaging with posts in each community authentically. NO AI COMMENTS, NO KARMA FARMING, NO INAUTHENTICITY. seriously it's a waste of time.

Phase 4: Study each Subreddit

Now that you have a place to post about your project, you need to STUDY each subreddit.

For each subreddit, look the top posts for the week/month. You really want to figure out these things for each subreddit:

1. When are the top posts posted? In my experience exact time doesn't matter thatmuch, but think about it. If you're posting when everyone is asleep or at work, nobody will see your post initially. The times that work best for me typically are 2am - 4am PST. Yes it's really early, but that's when the east coast is waking up and the west coast follows suit shortly after.
2. What narratives perform the best in each subreddit? Showcases? Storytelling? Do people drop direct links? etc. Your goal is to take inspiration from the top performing posts as much as possible. They did well for a reason.
3. What TITLES performed the best? Any repeat words/phrases? Do they use metrics to grab attention? etc. Use those same phrases/strategies in your own title.

Great, now that you've done your research, it's time to make your post.

Phase 5: Constructing Your Post

Hopefully given your research from Phase 4, you're well prepared to create the post for each subreddit.

The MOST important part of your post is the title. Make it as ENGAGING/CLICKABLE as possible. Again, look at the top performing posts from that subreddit and do what they do.

For the body of your post, authenticity is everything. Be genuine. For me that's always been writing the story of why I built the product.

What problem does it solve? How does it solve that problem? What's your own experience using your own product?

Or do you have an incredible success story you want to share? Then share it.

Ask for feedback in a friendly way at the bottom. Thank everyone for reading.

Phase 6: The Post and Iterate Loop

Now this is an important and very underrated step that's worked well for me. Post in ONLY 1-2 subreddits at first at the best times for those subreddits you found in Phase 4. Wait a day, see how they do, see what people comment, and reply to those comments religiously.

If people aren't liking your post, figure out why. Is it not getting views? Maybe your title isn't good enough, or the video isn't hooking people's attention. Is it not getting upvotes? Maybe people are commenting that it's too self promo-y, or that they don't understand what your product does.

PERFECT. Iterate, change up the title, change up the body of your post, tweak the video, make improvements to the product to clarify it's value better, etc.

Then, post again in 1-2 different subreddits. Repeat until one of your posts is successful, then you can post to the rest of your Subreddits.

You can consider a post successful when it's getting like 500-1,000 views per hour and the upvote percentage is >80%. This means it'll be shown in the "Best" filter for that subreddit and will attract a lot of views and traffic to your site.

And now, it's time for your productto start converting that traffic into paid users. If you're getting new users, but no conversions, that means something is wrong with your product. Look at feedback on your reddit post, reply to comments, iterate based on their feedback.

Conclusion

That's pretty much it. That's the formula I've been following for 2 years now and it's done really well for me. Reddit is a goldmine for attracting intial users to your product especially when you have absolutey 0 following (like me!).

There is no algorithm, your post is judged purely on it's quality (and partially on how clickable it is).

Anyway, I hope this helps out those who need it. Was getting asked a lot to share how I post/market on Reddit so figured I'd make a long lasting article on it.

And if you have any questions, feel free to ask em, I'll try to reply to everyone.

Cheers :) Thanks for reading.