r/leanstartup

I’ve been building an app for creators and have been trying different ways to get my first 1,000 creators globally to try it and give honest feedback.

The more I explore, the more I feel Reddit could be the right place because there are so many creators here who are willing to share their experiences and give genuine feedback.

The problem is that I can’t mention my company or product name directly because my posts get removed, which I completely understand. I don’t want to spam or break community rules.
But at the same time, I genuinely want to get the product in front of creators and learn from them.

So I wanted to ask the Reddit community:

**What is the right way to approach this?**
Are there specific ways founders can introduce a product while staying within the rules?
I’d really appreciate advice from people who have successfully built products with the help of Reddit communities.
I’m not looking to spam or promote. I genuinely want to learn from creators and build something that actually helps them.

Been building in the recipe/cooking space for a while and I keep running into the same thing, so I want to hear how other builders think about it.

Most recipe organizer apps hand you a blank grid and a friendly "start adding your recipes!" And that's exactly where they die. Staring at an empty box is not motivating. Nobody's first cooking session is data entry. The app gets opened twice and then it's gone.

The pattern I've landed on: an app that actually earns retention has to be useful before the user contributes anything. If the first session is cooking instead of typing, the whole relationship changes. Empty-state-as-onboarding is the quiet killer.

The other thing that kills these apps is recipe entry itself. Typing out ingredients, measurements, and steps for one recipe is tedious enough that people never do their second one. So import (Safari share sheet, photos of old cards, PDFs) and tap-driven entry instead of a keyboard both matter way more than any single feature.

Questions for the other builders here:

\- how do you handle the cold-start empty state without it feeling like a chore?
\- for anyone who's shipped something content-heavy, did seeding real content upfront actually move retention, or did it just inflate day-1 and nothing else?
\- what's your take on import-first vs create-first as the primary onboarding path?

Not trying to pitch anything, genuinely curious how people who've shipped in this kind of space solved it.

I’ve spent a long time building a local marketplace that helps people discover nearby businesses and services.

The product is live, and I’ve already tested it in one city. I learned a lot from that process and got some encouraging results.

The problem I’m facing now is distribution.

Building the product was something I could control. Getting enough people to actually discover and use it is a completely different challenge.

I’ve tried small marketing experiments and got some results, but I haven’t had enough budget to scale what was working.

For founders who have taken a product from “built” → “people actually use it”:

What marketing or distribution strategy actually made a difference for you?

I’m not looking for generic “run ads” advice. I’m trying to figure out how to get the first real wave of users without burning through my remaining budget.

Also, if anyone here has a strong network in local businesses, marketing, growth, or distribution, or knows someone who could genuinely help with what I’m building, I’d really appreciate an introduction.

I’m mainly looking for honest advice from people who have solved this problem before

One of the hardest parts of building a product isn’t finding ideas,  it’s knowing which ideas are actually worth pursuing.

You can get signals from everywhere:

• Customer requests
• Product usage data
• Competitor updates
• Reddit/community discussions
• Sales conversations
• Your own assumptions

But these signals don’t always agree.

So I’m curious how other founders approach this:

When several signals point in different directions, what do you trust most before deciding to build?

And has there ever been a signal you ignored that turned out to be important later?

Would be interested to hear how others handle this.

Hi, I made this post a few weeks ago about validating the problem by talking directly to potential users:

https://www.reddit.com/r/SaaS/comments/1v50ywp/i_validated_the_problem_by_talking_to_people_on/

Since then, I've continued validating the problem and started building the MVP. I'm probably around 60% done now. While talking to people in my target customer base, I was also able to get the personal contact numbers of two people who were interested.

Today, I released a simple coming-soon page to see if I could get some early interest.

I got reactions from around 15 people, but almost none of them were from my actual target audience. I only got 2 signups. One of them is actually from my target customer group, but interestingly, she wasn't someone I expected to sign up.

Now I'm facing two problems.

First, I'm genuinely worried about releasing the MVP.

This platform is being built for work where accuracy and quality are extremely important. It's also an AI product, and I'm already facing some data accuracy issues. This isn't the kind of product where I can just say, "It's an MVP, it'll get better later," if the core output isn't reliable enough.

I'm worried that if I attract more people, they try the MVP, and their first impression is that it's not good enough, I could lose those potential users before I've had the chance to make the product genuinely useful.

Second, I'm not getting enough traction from the people I'm actually building this for.

So I'm stuck between continuing to build until I feel more confident about the quality, or releasing it to a very small group and improving it based on their feedback.

For people who have built AI products where accuracy really matters, how did you handle this stage?

Would you release to a handful of carefully selected users first, even if you know the MVP still has accuracy problems? Or would you keep building until the core output is reliable enough before putting it in anyone's hands?

I'm curious what you'd do in this situation.

I also want to closely work with a target group of around 10 people atleast so closely so, atleast i might find worthy outputs and build a strong platfrom that would genuelny bring value instead of building sake.

I’m developing an early-stage fintech idea, but finding potential customers to interview has been harder than building the initial version.

I’ve tried cold outreach to business owners, but received almost no responses. I’m not trying to sell or recruit anyone here. I want to understand how other founders overcame this problem.

For those who started without an audience or established network: how did you secure your first five useful customer interviews? Did introductions, industry events, online communities, or another approach work best?

Also, what did you say in your initial message that made someone willing to respond? I’m particularly interested in approaches you personally tried, including those that failed.

Hey everyone, my cofounder and I are building Project Origin, a network for startup founders to find technical cofounders, collaborators, and funding.

The product has two main parts:

• Collaborator feed: founders post what they’re building and the kind of person they need. Technical people and other startup builders can find them and connect. They decide the terms themselves equity, revenue share, etc.
• Pitch feed: founders post their startup as a short video. The community upvotes pitches, and the strongest ones get featured and put in front of an investor.

The bigger goal is to build a global network of startup founders and people who want to build startups, so founders aren't limited to the network they already have.

Our main problem now is distribution.

Our current strategy is:

• Build in public and share what we learn.
• Create startup/tech content that brings people into the community.
• Post community-focused content around startups.
• Directly reach out to founders and technical people.
• Push everything toward our waitlist before launch.

What do you think of this distribution strategy?

I’m a solo founder building an early fintech MVP around cash-flow decision support for small businesses.

The idea came from conversations at a networking event in Columbus, where I heard business owners describe the difficulty of deciding what to do when cash becomes tight. I started building a tool that combines cash balances, receivables and payables to provide practical recommendations.

So far, I have:

* Built an early working MVP
* Tested it with sample QuickBooks accounting data
* Contacted approximately **120** potential users
* Attended **23** networking events
* Tried outreach through **Reddit, email, LinkedIn**
* Received zero meaningful customer-discovery responses

Product development is my stronger area; marketing and communication are where I struggle.

The lack of responses is affecting my motivation. I try to compensate with discipline, but lately I’ve struggled to focus, and then I feel guilty for not working hard enough.

I’m not asking whether I should “just keep going.” I would appreciate specific advice from founders who have experienced this stage:

1. How did you determine whether your outreach was wrong or the underlying problem was weak?
2. What customer-discovery channel produced your first five genuine conversations?
3. How did you structure your week when building and outreach were competing for your attention?
4. What measurable checkpoint would you set before deciding to continue, reposition or stop?

I’d especially value advice from bootstrapped B2B or fintech founders.

The product was originally built for one ecommerce business with a very specific (and pretty broken) support workflow. They weren't using a proper helpdesk, so I designed the whole product around how they actually handled support.

now I want to introduce it to public and grow beyond that specific use case.

the plan is onboard the original business and get them actively using it then

• Ship a feature that it feels like a usable tool rather than just a sophisticated prototype.
• Get detailed feedback from the original business and narrow down the ICP.
• start doing cold outreach and marketing.

ICP is around: Shopify stores receiving >50 customer support tickets/per day, where support is handled manually through Gmail or a basic inbox.

It's my first time ever encountering this situation so would love to hear your advise

Hey all, new here sorry if this is a dupe.

Context; I recently built a Saas product that (accidentally) ended up being an ugly (but more fully featured) clone of Buildpad. After I built it I realized had no idea how to launch. It was like being 16 year old me in my garage with 20 songs written and no shows booked, same energy. So I started doing market research and that was how I discovered that there was a successful incumbent that was almost 1 to 1 with my app. I decided the lesson was that I did what I like to do first (build) and avoided what confused / scared me (market), and that was probably backwards, and for my next project I want to get it right.

I'm not an entrepreneur (yet (I can still barely spell it)), I'm a software engineer trying to get on with my life. I've got a list of other good ideas I'm ready to build, but I want to avoid the mistake I made with my last app. To that end I've been churning through a lot of conflicting advice about the best ways to do market research and draw an early audience. The conventional product wisdom (as I understand it, I'm still learning) is to

1. find a problem
2. sketch a solution (don't build)
3. test the hypothesis in public (user interviews, manual onboarding, free work)
4. collect feedback and iterate
5. full launch, leverage early adopters as proof of concept, marketing sprint.

This makes sense, but leaves me with a few questions. Specifically *where* do i test my hypothesis? again, conventional wisdom is "go post in reddit communities" or similar, but in the age of AI summaries and strict moderation I'm finding it difficult to just waltz into a room and put my hand up. It seems like the system has evolved to discourage dumb questions. Problem is, that's all I currently have.

So that leaves me considering the other prominent school of thought I've seen toted around, which is essentially "build first then farm for customers". This is the mistake I just made, or is it? AI let's us build rapidly, so maybe this is less crazy than it used to be? Something like...

1. build an MVP (what i did)
2. get on social media and show it off (where I stopped after I realized Buildpad existed).
3. DM people or post in communities to try it (similar to interviewing on the idea, but now you've got an MVP)
4. iterate, profit, etc.

I'm suspicious of this later method because it's the one most often pushed by the "BECOME A MILLIONAIRE IN 24 HOURS WITH CHATGPT" crowd. But I also can see the reason in it, and AI has and still is changing the game every day.

So the question is... to MVP or not to MVP? Do i run into a community forum with nothing more than an idea and be for feedback? Or do i build an MVP and get out there trying to prove value? And how do i actually get in front of these communities? do i just keep posting till one get's attention?

Or (entirely likely) something else? I don't know. This is a dumb question, by design, so please feel free to treat it as such and school me in anyway that seems fit. And let me point to the elephant in the room - I'm shy and afraid of rejection ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯. This whole "ask dumb questions to find an audience" thing confuses and intimidates me. I can do it.. but I suppose I'm looking for advice. 💖

We’re researching how asset managers and wealth managers reconcile positions, cash and transactions across banks, brokers and custodians.

We have one organization helping us understand the workflow, but we need to determine how widely the problem exists.

When target users are difficult to reach, what evidence would you require before building further?

Interviews, sample workflows, pilot commitments, letters of intent or something else?

I have a digital/SaaS idea that I think could be successful. I read everywhere about validating the idea with potential customers before starting to build. Right now I have no direct contact with any potential customers so it becomes a bit of "cold questions" and therefore I can't ask too much and the more I ask the less chance I have of getting a good answer.

What questions do you usually ask/what questions should I ask?

What I'm thinking of is:

1. What system are you using today?
2. Is there anything in your existing system that you are not happy with how it works today (too many features, missing features, slow, expensive, not really adapted to the business)?

I’ve built a working proof of concept for a very niche B2B product, and I’m having trouble finding the right people to test it.

The product is a due-diligence and analysis tool for mortgage note investors. It calculates deal metrics, compares available property and public-record data, and flags possible risks, inconsistencies, or missing information.

The challenge is that the target audience is relatively small and specialized. I have access to a couple of relevant Facebook groups, and I’ve started looking through Reddit and LinkedIn, but I don’t want to spam communities or recruit people who are only casually interested.

At this stage, I’m not trying to sell anything. I’m looking for 3 to 5 knowledgeable people who would be willing to bring a real or anonymized deal to a short screen-share session, review the output with me, and explain what the product gets right, gets wrong, or is missing.

For those who have launched niche B2B products:
How did you find your first qualified testers?
Did direct outreach work better than community posts?
Did you offer anything in exchange for their time?
How did you convince busy professionals to participate before the product was publicly available?
I’d appreciate any practical ideas, especially from people who have dealt with a very small or hard-to-reach target market.