📈 Growing a Reddit community for your startup

Hi there 👋 Thanks for reading Scalable, where you get practical know-how and actionable insights every week for free.

I often hear founders over-pitching the idea of “leveraging the community” - and more often than that, growing with “word of mouth”.

In this week’s edition, I’m sharing a number of tools and resources with a specific focus on Reddit, to actually help you achieve community-led growth.

💡 I gotta tell you, this might be the most comprehensive edition of Scalable so far, with a bunch of practical tactics you can apply right away.

Here’s a snapshot of what’s on the menu today:

☝️ Scaled this past week: Triver

Triver, a UK-based fintech company, has secured an additional £2.5 million in funding - it’s the scale of the week!

They allow SMEs to fund their businesses without taking debt.

Clients can receive advances on client invoices within 20 minutes of application, significantly faster than traditional bank processes that can take weeks for approval and funding - which incurs additional debt.

Triver solves exactly that.

Here’s how it works:

• Upload a client invoice you wish to turn into cash flow

• Get funds instantly transferred to your business bank account 

• When your client pays you, repay Triver by direct debit

👉 Giving SMEs instant access to working capital, I’m a fan of the way Triver aims to solve the never-ending liquidity problem.

🧠 Deep-dive: Dive Into Anything

Leveraging Reddit can drive community-led growth for your startup, because it’s probably the #1 free-for-all community platform out there.

You can create a passionate user base if you are passionate enough yourself.

👉 Unless you have been hiding under a rock for the past decade (it’s alright if you have), Reddit is a powerful platform for custom-made communities about anything and everything.

Here's why:

• Reddit is divided into thousands of subreddits, each focused on a specific topic or interest.

  • Whether your product is related to technology, fitness, fashion, or any niche market, there’s a subreddit for it.

• Unlike traditional social media platforms where paid promotions dominate, Reddit offers a more organic growth path.

  • Authenticity is the currency on Reddit.

👉 Effectively, your customers are on Reddit, even more so if you have a B2C proposition.

There are groups of people organically coming together simply because they share similar interests.

Some of them will surely be interested in getting some problems solved.

You can find, organize, and search their communities.

Alongside some tools to maximize your results, here’s my action strategy to start from zero and go to hero:

1. Identify Relevant Subreddits
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2. Engage Authentically
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3. Host AMAs
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4. Create Your Own Subreddit

1. Identify relevant subreddits

Start by identifying subreddits that align with your product or industry. You can use GummySearch for it.

GummySearch is a platform that I have come across recently. It allows you to find subreddits for a specific product or service for you to identify a targetable audience. With a tool like this, you can:

• ideate and validate startup ideas

• inspire content / products

• find sales leads

2. Focus on engaging authentically

   👉 I cannot stress how important this is on Reddit:

Do not promote directly, but participate in discussions instead. Provide as much free value as possible.

Users can easily spot and downvote spammy or self-promotional content, so focus on being genuinely helpful.

This can include how-to guides, case studies, or personal experiences that answers a question.

Post content that benefits the community.

3. Host AMAs (ask-me-anything sessions)

AMAs are a popular format on Reddit where individuals or companies answer questions from the community.

Hosting an AMA is a great way to introduce your startup, share your story, and interact directly with potential users (given that people ask about it - 😉😉).

👉 When "Ask Me Anything" (or AMA) threads are live, an influencer, executive, or staff member from the company creates a post announcing who they are and encouraging Redditors to ask them questions.

Be prepared for tough questions and be transparent in your responses. Here’s one that I read recently:

4. Create your own subreddit

This is the final step, which might take some time and require some more to manage.

👉 It’s the right time only after you’ve established a presence, consider creating your own subreddit dedicated to your product or industry.

This would ultimately serve as a centralized hub for discussions, updates, and exclusive content related to your startup. Encourage users to share their experiences, ask questions, and provide feedback.

There is no one-size-fits-all solution here and there are some unique examples. While I was researching, I ended up reading this Hubspot article, check it out if this is an area you are looking to experiment:

👉 Here is my favorite example so far:

While Toyota made content for a specific subreddit that aligned with its brand, Ally Bank got creative by making and promoting content specifically for the Playstation subreddit.

A banking ad seems like a stretch for an audience that loves video games. So, to connect the two topics, Ally created an ad with an interesting analogy: "You wouldn't settle for a 1-star controller, so why settle for a 1-star bank?"

🧠 Pretty clever.

🗺️ Method: Community Interaction Checklist

Coming up with continuous content is hard.

Reaching out to individual accounts and messaging people can be time-consuming.

You can be in a position where you are questioning if you’re taking the right steps.

Well, there is a number of different types of actions you can take in different platforms (liking, connecting, sending a follow request, posting about a specific subject, etc).

I’ve collated a number of these various actions in this checklist below. If you want to ensure consistent engagement and grow your presence in the community, follow this step-by-step guideline:

• Each week, check all boxes in social platforms you are present at.

• The aim is to engage with your community as much as possible.

• The formality level and the tone of voice/language are totally up to you.

👉 Remember, the key is the engage organically and authentically.

💡 Spotlight: Later for Reddit

Once you start going through the weekly checklist for community interaction, you will likely want to start planning things out in advance - it can become a hassle if unorganized.

One interesting tool I came across is Later for Reddit.

This tool helps schedule posts, track performance, and manage multiple accounts. Here’s what’s in it:

• Pre-made post templates 

  • You can use these for common post types to save time.

  • You can also refer back to GummySearch for which post types are the best for which subreddit to best resonate with your community.

• Scheduled post 

  • Allows you to plan and schedule your posts to maintain continuous engagement.

• Analytics 

  • Track performance, engagement rates, and subreddit growth.

  • You can also use multiple accounts simultaneously.

👉 It is always a great convenience to have a tool that makes it easier to maintain an active and engaging presence on any social platform.

⚾️ Catch: A LinkedIn Post - Wynter

I stumbled upon this post on LinkedIn this week - and for any product people and startup founders out there, it’s a catch. Worth checking out.

Here’s a screenshot of that homepage and the URL:

We surely are going through interesting times since “a landing page telling you what the product actually does” is a point of discussion in the community.

👉 What do you think about this? Feel free to reply to this email to share your take on it with me - I read and respond to every reply.

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