u/Alex_runs247

Hey y’all! Fellow vibe coder here with ZERO actual coding experience lol. If you have been getting shut down on Reddit every time you ask a basic Claude Code question, just wanted to let you know Anthropic has a free Claude Code certification that took me about an hour and genuinely taught me a lot!! I had no idea half of this existed. I’m about to start the small business guide next. Happy to answer whatever basic questions I can based on what I just learned. 😊✌🏽

Hey y’all! Fellow vibe coder here with ZERO actual coding experience lol. If you have been getting shut down on Reddit every time you ask a basic Claude Code question, just wanted to let you know Anthropic has a free Claude Code certification that took me about an hour and genuinely taught me a lot!! I had no idea half of this existed. I’m about to start the small business guide next. Happy to answer whatever basic questions I can based on what I just learned. 😊✌🏽

Hey everyone. I’ve been seeing a lot of solid questions in this sub lately, and I’ve been answering some in the comments here and there. Figured I’d just open the floor instead.

Quick background about me. I spent the last 6+ years recruiting across a few different industries and personally hired almost 1000 people during that time. Mostly entry-level all the way up to senior managers/ Directors. I’ve screened thousands of resumes, sat through way too many interviews from the hiring side, written rejection emails, made offer calls. The whole thing!

Full transparency though, I was actually laid off myself back in March due to downsizing, so I’m actively seeing both sides of the hiring coin right now. Job hunting while having spent years on the other side of the desk has been a humbling experience and honestly given me even more perspective on how rough this market really is.

Not gonna pretend I have all the answers. A lot of the advice out there is either outdated or just bad. But if you’ve got something specific you’re stuck on, drop it in the comments and I’ll give you the most honest read I can based on what actually happens behind the scenes.

Stuff I’m happy to dig into:

- Why your applications keep getting ghosted
- Employment gaps and how to talk about them without making it weird
- Follow-ups (when, how, and the version that actually works)
- The salary question and what to say when it comes up
- What recruiters actually look at in the first 10 seconds of your resume
- Cover letters (yes they still matter, but probably not the way you think)
- Layoffs
- Difference between in-house recruiters and staffing agency recruiters (it’s bigger than people realize)
- AI in hiring and what’s really happening on the backend
- Whatever else you’re stuck on

Again, I’m at NOT claiming to be a guru/ expert or anything, I’m just happy to answer any questions that people may have for the “other side” lol

Good luck out there everyone! 😊✌️

Yes, I knew the conventional wisdom said to keep my established account. I did it anyway. Here’s why and what happened.

Quick context first. I’m a non-technical founder building an NYC errand marketplace. I got laid off from my recruiting manager job on March 5th. Started this new Reddit account a few days later with the goal of using it as my primary organic acquisition channel.

Why I ditched the old account:
I previously had a 7-year-old account with 6,000+ karma. Bringing it back to life took longer than building a new account from scratch. The old one was a general-purpose account with no identity. Comments and posts went out under a username nobody could connect to anything I was building. Every time I posted about my company, it felt off. Like I was hijacking my own profile.

So I made a call. A new account with a single identity. Founder of one specific company. Real name, real bio, real links. The new account hit 2x the followers of the old account in 1/40th the time!

That decision is the whole post. Everything below is what happened after I made it.

The timeline:
Every date is pulled directly from the Reddit achievements panel.
Mar 9-10 — Account created
• Mar 21-22 — Hit 102 karma, retired my old 7-year-old account, made this one my primary
• Mar 28 — First post crossed 100 upvotes (Picasso badge). 18 days into the account.
• Apr 1 — Top 5% Poster in r/claude
• Apr 4 — First Flag Planter badge in r/growmybusiness (first commenter on new posts for 10 straight days)
• Apr 6 — Flag Planter in r/buildinpublic
• Apr 7 — Flag Planter in r/claude
• Apr 13 — Rising Star
• Apr 19 — Third 100-upvote post
• May 1 — Top 1% Commenter (r/claude). Top 5% Poster (r/ClaudeAI). Plus five other authority-tier badges all the same day.
• May 7 — Fourth Flag Planter
• May 8 (today) — 1.4K karma, 23 followers (more than my 7-year-old account ever had), 39 achievements, active in 44 subreddits, and 250K+ combined views across my posts and comments

Five things that actually worked:

1. Comments, not posts.
2. Every authority badge I earned came from commenting in other people’s threads, not from pushing my own posts. Most non-technical founders get this backwards. The posts get the signups, but the comments build the credibility that makes the posts convert.
3. Three subs, not one.
4. I focused on r/claude, r/buildinpublic, and r/growmybusiness as my home base. Cross-pollination compounds way faster than camping out in one community.
5. Time of day matters more than I thought.
6. Founder voice beats brand voice.
7. Every post that earned a badge was written first-person. I dropped the corporate tone completely. People here can smell a marketer from three threads away.
8. Profile is part of the strategy.
9. Real first name and last initial. Bio that says what I’m building and that I’m open to network. Two links: my company waitlist and LinkedIn. People click profiles after reading a good comment. What they find there determines whether they sign up.

Anyway, that’s the breakdown. Happy to answer questions in the comments. If you’re a non-technical founder trying to build organic on Reddit, ask me anything! 😊🙏🏽

It was working all morning and now it is completely down. The picture will either have the loading spinner perpetually spinning or the red triangle with the red exclamation mark will pop up after about five minutes!

Edit: just tried on the desktop and I’m not able to upload from here either! 🤦‍♂️

Hey everyone, solo founder here. I am pre-launch, bootstrapped, and honestly, as many of you also are, I’m just trying to figure this out as I go!

I am at the stage where I need to start thinking seriously about funding and I really do not know a ton about either of the paths I am exploring. I would rather hear from real people who have been through it than read another generic article.

Has anyone gone after VC funding at the pre-seed stage?

- What did that process actually look like for you?

- Has anyone had any luck with non-dilutive grants?

Government programs, SBDC, nonprofit funding, anything.

Did it actually come through and how long did it take?

I will take any advice I can get. Nothing is too small, nothing is wrong. If you have been through either of these and have even one thing worth sharing I genuinely want to hear it.

Hey everyone, solo founder here. I am pre-launch, bootstrapped, and honestly, as many of you also are, I’m just trying to figure this out as I go!

I am at the stage where I need to start thinking seriously about funding and I really do not know a ton about either of the paths I am exploring. I would rather hear from real people who have been through it than read another generic article.

Has anyone gone after VC funding at the pre-seed stage?

- What did that process actually look like for you?

- Has anyone had any luck with non-dilutive grants?

Government programs, SBDC, nonprofit funding, anything.

Did it actually come through and how long did it take?

I will take any advice I can get. Nothing is too small, nothing is wrong. If you have been through either of these and have even one thing worth sharing I genuinely want to hear it.

Hey everyone, solo founder here. I am pre-launch, bootstrapped, and honestly, as many of you also are, I’m just trying to figure this out as I go!

I am at the stage where I need to start thinking seriously about funding and I really do not know a ton about either of the paths I am exploring. I would rather hear from real people who have been through it than read another generic article.

Has anyone gone after VC funding at the pre-seed stage?

- What did that process actually look like for you?

- Has anyone had any luck with non-dilutive grants?

Government programs, SBDC, nonprofit funding, anything.

Did it actually come through and how long did it take?

I will take any advice I can get. Nothing is too small, nothing is wrong. If you have been through either of these and have even one thing worth sharing I genuinely want to hear it.

Hey everyone, solo founder here. I am pre-launch, bootstrapped, and honestly, as many of you also are, I’m just trying to figure this out as I go!

I am at the stage where I need to start thinking seriously about funding and I really do not know a ton about either of the paths I am exploring. I would rather hear from real people who have been through it than read another generic article.

Has anyone gone after VC funding at the pre-seed stage?

- What did that process actually look like for you?

- Has anyone had any luck with non-dilutive grants?

Government programs, SBDC, nonprofit funding, anything.

Did it actually come through and how long did it take?

I will take any advice I can get. Nothing is too small, nothing is wrong. If you have been through either of these and have even one thing worth sharing I genuinely want to hear it.

Hey everyone, solo founder here. I am pre-launch, bootstrapped, and honestly, as many of you also are, I’m just trying to figure this out as I go!

I am at the stage where I need to start thinking seriously about funding and I really do not know a ton about either of the paths I am exploring. I would rather hear from real people who have been through it than read another generic article.

Has anyone gone after VC funding at the pre-seed stage?

- What did that process actually look like for you?

- Has anyone had any luck with non-dilutive grants?

Government programs, SBDC, nonprofit funding, anything.

Did it actually come through and how long did it take?

I will take any advice I can get. Nothing is too small, nothing is wrong. If you have been through either of these and have even one thing worth sharing I genuinely want to hear it.

DAYUMMMM were they right. I didn’t wanna believe it, for some reason I had blind faith in Anthropic. But I have to say Reddit absolutely called it, it’s been ALL over the place today!! I’ve literally had to downvote like 11 messages from Claude this morning alone. 🤦‍♂️

We are one day from the two month anniversary of launching the Ernds™ waitlist and yesterday we hit 500 signups.

I am not posting this to flex. In fact it is the exact opposite.

Every single one of those 500 people took a chance on something that does not exist yet and believed there is a better way for everyday errands to be handled and many of them came from subreddits exactly like this one. I am eternally grateful for each and every one of them!!

Here is what actually moved the needle in case it helps anyone else who is building right now:

- Reddit organic posts were by far the biggest driver, specifically writing post titles like search queries so they index on Google fast. Our r/NYCjobs post hit 50K+ views and drove over 100 signups in less than 72 hours.

- Facebook neighborhood groups were the strongest free customer acquisition channel. Real neighbors, real trust, zero ad spend needed. Nextdoor surprised me. 855 views on a single poll post with zero dollars spent and it keeps growing every time I post. Karma farming on unrelated subreddits built enough account credibility to post in stricter communities without getting filtered out.

-We also tested Reddit paid ads at $5 a day and got real data on what converts and what does not.

If you have not joined the waitlist yet it is completely free and it is not too late. Would love to have you there 🙏

https://www.ernds.app

We are one day from the two month anniversary of going live and I am honestly still in shock…

Yesterday Ernds™ hit 500 waitlist signups 🤯 and many of them came from subreddits just like this!! I am not posting this to flex. In fact, it’s the exact opposite. Every single one of those 500 people took a chance on something that does not exist yet and believed there is a better way for everyday errands to be handled and I am eternally grateful for each and every one of them!!

If you have not signed up yet it is completely free and it is not too late! Would love to have you there. 😊🙏

https://www.ernds.app

Anybody able to use it in the last hour or two?

In the process of building two apps right now and the most useful thing I’ve done so far has been starting a small private founder community a few weeks back.

19 founders, spanning 4 continents and 11 countries. People at every stage from pre-launch to revenue generating, working in completely different industries. Marketers, engineers, designers, finance people, operators, photographers, lawyers turned founders.

What’s been wild is how much faster I’m shipping because I’m not building in a vacuum anymore. Members have been giving me honest product feedback, calling out blind spots, sharing what worked for them on distribution, and connecting me to people in their networks. The kind of feedback you usually pay an agency for, except it’s coming from peers who actually understand the founder grind.

We’ve also been holding each other accountable through monthly calls and active engagement on each other’s posts. Second monthly call is coming up on Thursday May 7.

If you’re building apps and want to be in a room with founders who actually show up for each other, feel free to join us. We’re on LinkedIn (capped at 50 founding members) and Reddit (open) at r/1stVenturesCollective. Chatham House Rules. No pitching, no courses, no gurus.

Just founders helping founders build better.

— Alex 😊✌️

Spent the last 5 weeks building a small private founder community. As part of onboarding, I asked every founder the same set of questions. 19 of them answered.

Here’s what stood out:

The community spans 4 continents and 11 countries — North America, Europe, Asia, Africa. Backgrounds range from solo founders working 8 hours a week alongside a day job to people putting in 60+ hours and saying “all of them, every waking hour.”

Stages are split. About 20% pre-launch, 10% post-launch, 10% revenue generating. The rest are somewhere between idea, MVP, and scaling.

But here’s the part that surprised me. When I asked about their biggest blocker, the same three answers showed up across nearly every response:

1. Distribution and marketing. Even the technical founders shipping fast said the bottleneck wasn’t building. It was getting the product in front of people without a budget or a team.

2. Time efficiency day-to-day. Most founders I talked to are juggling multiple ventures or running solo. The challenge isn’t picking a goal. It’s protecting the hours to actually move it.

3. Sales. Specifically getting the first real conversations going. Past the cold email, past the connection request, into the room where deals get done.

Founders at every stage, in every country, working in completely different industries — and the same three blockers kept coming up.

Take that for what it is. If you’re stuck on one of these, you’re not alone. If you’ve solved one of them, your peers need you.

— Alex

(If this sounds like it’s your thing, you can find us on Reddit at r/1stVenturesCollective. No pitch, just sharing the data)