How to get your 1st customer (using Reddit)

How I used Reddit to bring in over 1,000 visitors and $2,000 in sales without spending a cent.

Kiran Buckman
January 18, 2026

2 - Pick one subreddit to start & READ THE RULES

Each subreddit has their own set of rules. Go to their sidebar and read them. 

Choose just one subreddit. I chose /startups as it made sense for my target market. 

3 - Understand the headlines which resonates

Go to the subreddit. Click the filters and hit ‘Top’ and then either ‘This Year’ or ‘All Time’. I prefer ‘This Year’ as it tells us what works more recently.

Read the headlines, get a feel of what this subreddit likes.

Or copy all of the headlines and paste it into ChatGPT to let it find trends for you.

My observation was that /startups appreciated guides and validation in themselves. So I went with the title post:

“Guide: I use this prompt stack to kill weak startup ideas in under 30 minutes.”

4 - Create the Reddit post 

Do not use ChatGPT. The writing style can be really obvious and Redditors smell it from a mile away.

As you did with the headlines, you can either find the trends by reading yourself, or get help with ChatGPT to understand what resonates.

Use that to write it yourself. 

Your goal is not to promote, but to add value.

Do not promote your product, but you can mention it subtly like a carrot.

For example, in my post I mention that I developed something and then share free value (in the prompts itself).

At the very end I have a soft call-to-action saying:

“There's like 50 more prompts after this which all connect to create collateral/ad journeys/content etc. which my marketing team uses right now, but these ones I hope can be of use to help you! It's a massive distillation of my whole career, now mixed with AI.“

5 - Find the right time to post

Timing is everything. Find the right time to post by using Later for reddit https://dashboard.laterforreddit.com/analysis/ 

Then hit post.

6 - Reply and DM to commenters

The post goes live.

24 hours later it get 239,000 views. 596 upvotes. And hundreds of comments.

Initially I was replying them to all, but later I realised it’s better to reply with a few high value insights. 

I DM’d all the commenters to see if they need help, or what they were working on to see if LiftKit could help them.

7 - Comment your link

Did you get positive feedback? If so, you can add a comment and share a link to your project so they can go to your website. I did this and added another bit of free value in the post:

“Thanks for all the feedback guys - there's loads! I wanted to add, please add this prompt before too - I didn't add it, but its another 1 of the 80 prompts (https://www.getliftkit.com/) I have in total which I use to automate my marketing team in a global multi-national. It removes the agreeable nature - meaning even more robust advice. Thanks to the redditor (who I cant find now), which I built this up off.”