u/Less-Bite

I spent weeks trying to find people who actually needed what I was building by just camping out in relevant subreddits. It was exhausting and mostly resulted in me getting sucked into random threads that had nothing to do with my business. I realized that just looking for keywords didn't work because most people don't use specific product terms when they are complaining about a problem. They use natural language that describes a pain point.

I decided to approach this more technically by building a tool called purplefree to automate the process. Instead of simple keyword alerts that ping me every time someone says lead gen, I set up a system using vector search to find posts where the actual intent matched what I solve. This allowed me to ignore the fluff and only jump into conversations where I could actually help. Within two days, I had five solid conversations that turned into beta testers because I was reaching out to people at the exact moment they expressed a need.

The lesson for me was that the 'manual grind' everyone talks about is often just inefficient. If you can identify the specific way your target audience describes their struggles, you can automate the discovery part and spend your limited energy on the actual outreach. It saved me about three hours of scrolling a day and kept me from getting banned for spamming since I was only replying to highly relevant threads.

I used to spend my first two hours every morning drinking coffee and doomscrolling through about fifteen different subreddits. I was looking for anyone mentioning problems my last project could solve, but it was incredibly soul-crushing. Most keyword alerts I set up were useless because they triggered on every mention of a word even if the context was totally wrong. I eventually realized I was spending more time hunting for users than actually building the product.

I built purplefree to automate that specific headache. Instead of simple keyword matching, I used Qdrant to handle semantic intent. It looks for the actual meaning behind a post. If someone is complaining about a specific pain point that matches your product's use case, it flags it and notifies you. It avoids the flood of junk you usually get with basic alerts because it evaluates the intent of the post through a multi-stage pipeline before it ever hits your inbox.

I also added a feature called Lens that analyzes subreddit moderation styles and risk scores so you don't get banned for being helpful. I am really looking for some feedback on the matching accuracy. If you have a niche product, I would love to know if the semantic search actually picks up the nuances of your specific industry or if it still feels too broad.

I spent the last month trying to track down early adopters by scrolling through subreddits every morning. The common advice is to just be helpful and jump into conversations, but finding those specific conversations feels like a full time job. I noticed that if I only searched for specific keywords, I missed most of the people who actually had the problem I was solving because they used different phrasing than I expected.

I ended up building a tool called purplefree to automate this for myself using semantic search instead of keywords. It basically finds the intent behind a post so I don't have to guess which terms people are using. It helped me move past the manual search phase, but I know the struggle is different for every niche.

What has been the most draining part of the search for you? Is it the sheer volume of noise you have to filter through, or is it the fear of being labeled a spammer when you finally do find a potential lead? I am interested to hear how other solo founders are navigating this without losing their minds.

I've been using Lens to crawl more subreddits for purplefree because I wanted to find more places for people to actually talk about their products. After hitting 1313 communities, the numbers are honestly depressing. 77.6 percent of these places are ranked as high or very high risk for anyone trying to share a tool. If you post there, you're basically asking for a ban or a lot of angry comments.

But here's the real kicker I noticed while digging through the data today. Most of the subreddits labeled as 'friendly' aren't actually friendly because they have a great culture. They're friendly because they're dead. I found a bunch of them with risk scores of 10, which sounds amazing until you see they have 1, 3, or 9 subscribers. They're just abandoned technical sandboxes or corporate landing pages where nobody is actually talking.

It makes the search for a real community feel like a needle in a haystack situation. Out of over 1300 subs, only 157 were flagged as friendly, and when you filter out the ones with zero activity, that number drops even more. We're all fighting for attention in the same five or six big subreddits because everywhere else is either a fortress of moderation or a ghost town. I'm starting to think the 'unfiltered' side of Reddit is mostly just people talking to themselves.

---

Key stats:

• 1313 total subreddits analyzed for marketer risk
• 77.6 percent of communities rated as high or very high risk
• 839 subreddits classified as explicitly hostile
• 157 subreddits labeled as marketer friendly
• 72.6 average risk score across the entire database

---

415 / 1000 users reached so far.

Previous post: Day 58 — Day 58 of sharing stats about my SaaS until I get 1000 users: Why is it so hard to get people to just create one thing after they sign up?

I've been using Lens to crawl more subreddits for purplefree because I wanted to find more places for people to actually talk about their products. After hitting 1313 communities, the numbers are honestly depressing. 77.6 percent of these places are ranked as high or very high risk for anyone trying to share a tool. If you post there, you're basically asking for a ban or a lot of angry comments.

But here's the real kicker I noticed while digging through the data today. Most of the subreddits labeled as 'friendly' aren't actually friendly because they have a great culture. They're friendly because they're dead. I found a bunch of them with risk scores of 10, which sounds amazing until you see they have 1, 3, or 9 subscribers. They're just abandoned technical sandboxes or corporate landing pages where nobody is actually talking.

It makes the search for a real community feel like a needle in a haystack situation. Out of over 1300 subs, only 157 were flagged as friendly, and when you filter out the ones with zero activity, that number drops even more. We're all fighting for attention in the same five or six big subreddits because everywhere else is either a fortress of moderation or a ghost town. I'm starting to think the 'unfiltered' side of Reddit is mostly just people talking to themselves.

---

Key stats:

• 1313 total subreddits analyzed for marketer risk
• 77.6 percent of communities rated as high or very high risk
• 839 subreddits classified as explicitly hostile
• 157 subreddits labeled as marketer friendly
• 72.6 average risk score across the entire database

---

415 / 1000 users reached so far.

Previous post: Day 58 — Day 58 of sharing stats about my SaaS until I get 1000 users: Why is it so hard to get people to just create one thing after they sign up?

I've been using Lens to crawl more subreddits for purplefree because I wanted to find more places for people to actually talk about their products. After hitting 1313 communities, the numbers are honestly depressing. 77.6 percent of these places are ranked as high or very high risk for anyone trying to share a tool. If you post there, you're basically asking for a ban or a lot of angry comments.

But here's the real kicker I noticed while digging through the data today. Most of the subreddits labeled as 'friendly' aren't actually friendly because they have a great culture. They're friendly because they're dead. I found a bunch of them with risk scores of 10, which sounds amazing until you see they have 1, 3, or 9 subscribers. They're just abandoned technical sandboxes or corporate landing pages where nobody is actually talking.

It makes the search for a real community feel like a needle in a haystack situation. Out of over 1300 subs, only 157 were flagged as friendly, and when you filter out the ones with zero activity, that number drops even more. We're all fighting for attention in the same five or six big subreddits because everywhere else is either a fortress of moderation or a ghost town. I'm starting to think the 'unfiltered' side of Reddit is mostly just people talking to themselves.

---

Key stats:

• 1313 total subreddits analyzed for marketer risk
• 77.6 percent of communities rated as high or very high risk
• 839 subreddits classified as explicitly hostile
• 157 subreddits labeled as marketer friendly
• 72.6 average risk score across the entire database

---

415 / 1000 users reached so far.

Previous post: Day 58 — Day 58 of sharing stats about my SaaS until I get 1000 users: Why is it so hard to get people to just create one thing after they sign up?

I was looking at the pricing for some of the bigger social listening platforms recently and the barrier to entry is ridiculous. Most of them start at a couple hundred dollars a month just to track basic keywords. For a solo founder or a small team, that is a huge chunk of the budget for something that usually just sends you a bunch of notifications you have to manually filter anyway.

I built purplefree to solve this by focusing on intent rather than just words. It uses Qdrant for vector search to find people on Reddit who are actually expressing a need for a specific solution. Traditional tools often ping you every time a brand is mentioned, but this looks at the context of the post to see if there is a real sales opportunity. I use multi-faceted vectors to separate the product description from the actual customer intent, which keeps the signal-to-noise ratio much higher than the enterprise tools I have tried.

I also added a feature called Lens that handles subreddit intelligence. It looks at moderation patterns and risk scores so you know where it is actually safe to engage. I am trying to figure out if the dashboard is intuitive enough for people who aren't technical, so I would appreciate any feedback on the UI or the general workflow. Does this seem like a viable alternative to the big expensive platforms for your own projects?

I recently sat down and tracked how much time I was actually spending manually scouring subreddits for potential users. Between the context switching and the endless scrolling through threads that had nothing to do with my product, I was losing about two hours every single day. If you value your time at even a modest hourly rate, doing this manually is basically the most expensive way to grow a startup.

I built purplefree to fix that by automating the detection process. Instead of simple keyword alerts that ping you every time someone mentions a common word, I'm using Qdrant and multi-faceted vector embeddings to match based on actual intent. It searches for people expressing a specific need or pain point that your tool solves, not just a specific phrase. It saves me those ten hours a week and only pings me when the lead is actually relevant.

Technically, I went with a three-stage pipeline. It starts with a semantic search in Qdrant using separate vectors for product descriptions and customer intents, then passes that through an LLM evaluation for a final match check. This keeps the noise low. I'd love to get some feedback on the dashboard UI and whether the notification frequency feels right for those of you also juggling side projects.

I've been staring at my onboarding funnel for purplefree today and it's a bit of a mess. I have 405 total users now, but the drop-off after the initial signup is brutal. 239 people have actually looked at leads, which isn't terrible, but then it just falls off a cliff. Only 165 users have bothered to create a product to track.

It feels like there's this massive psychological barrier between 'curiosity' and 'doing the work.' People sign up, they browse a few leads to see if the ML is actually finding real buying intent, and then they just vanish. Only about 40 percent of my total user base has actually set up the core thing the app is built for.

I also noticed that linking a social account is basically the final boss of my onboarding. Only 19 people have done it. I think I might be asking for too much too soon. When 153 people haven't even completed a single onboarding step, it tells me my 'aha' moment is buried way too deep in the menus. I need to make getting to that first lead-tracking product much faster.

---

Key stats:

• 405 total users signed up
• 165 users successfully created their first product
• 153 users have completed zero onboarding steps
• 4.6 percent of users linked a social account
• 17.7 percent of users have completed 3 or more steps

---

Current progress: 405 / 1000 users

Previous post: Day 57 — Day 57 of sharing stats about my SaaS until I get 1000 users: Automating Reddit is basically a suicide mission for your accounts

I've been staring at my onboarding funnel for purplefree today and it's a bit of a mess. I have 405 total users now, but the drop-off after the initial signup is brutal. 239 people have actually looked at leads, which isn't terrible, but then it just falls off a cliff. Only 165 users have bothered to create a product to track.

It feels like there's this massive psychological barrier between 'curiosity' and 'doing the work.' People sign up, they browse a few leads to see if the ML is actually finding real buying intent, and then they just vanish. Only about 40 percent of my total user base has actually set up the core thing the app is built for.

I also noticed that linking a social account is basically the final boss of my onboarding. Only 19 people have done it. I think I might be asking for too much too soon. When 153 people haven't even completed a single onboarding step, it tells me my 'aha' moment is buried way too deep in the menus. I need to make getting to that first lead-tracking product much faster.

---

Key stats:

• 405 total users signed up
• 165 users successfully created their first product
• 153 users have completed zero onboarding steps
• 4.6 percent of users linked a social account
• 17.7 percent of users have completed 3 or more steps

---

Current progress: 405 / 1000 users

Previous post: Day 57 — Day 57 of sharing stats about my SaaS until I get 1000 users: Automating Reddit is basically a suicide mission for your accounts

I've been staring at my onboarding funnel for purplefree today and it's a bit of a mess. I have 405 total users now, but the drop-off after the initial signup is brutal. 239 people have actually looked at leads, which isn't terrible, but then it just falls off a cliff. Only 165 users have bothered to create a product to track.

It feels like there's this massive psychological barrier between 'curiosity' and 'doing the work.' People sign up, they browse a few leads to see if the ML is actually finding real buying intent, and then they just vanish. Only about 40 percent of my total user base has actually set up the core thing the app is built for.

I also noticed that linking a social account is basically the final boss of my onboarding. Only 19 people have done it. I think I might be asking for too much too soon. When 153 people haven't even completed a single onboarding step, it tells me my 'aha' moment is buried way too deep in the menus. I need to make getting to that first lead-tracking product much faster.

---

Key stats:

• 405 total users signed up
• 165 users successfully created their first product
• 153 users have completed zero onboarding steps
• 4.6 percent of users linked a social account
• 17.7 percent of users have completed 3 or more steps

---

Current progress: 405 / 1000 users

Previous post: Day 57 — Day 57 of sharing stats about my SaaS until I get 1000 users: Automating Reddit is basically a suicide mission for your accounts

I've been dogfooding the autopilot feature for purplefree lately and the numbers are honestly pretty depressing. I built this safety filter to stop the bot from posting things that break subreddit rules or look too spammy, and it is working almost too well. Out of 113 scheduled posts, the system skipped 34 entirely and another 35 just straight up failed. That is a 33 percent success rate.

Some subreddits are just impossible. I tried targeting r/indiehackers and r/entrepreneurridealong with different strategies. Between those two, I had about 24 attempts and exactly 0 successful posts. Zero. My code just looks at the moderation settings and the current vibe of the sub and says nope, not worth getting banned today.

It is interesting because it shows the massive gap between what we want to automate and what Reddit actually allows. Even when I am the one controlling it, the system is rejecting two-thirds of the work because the risk of a ban is too high. If you are just blasting links without these kinds of checks, I have no idea how your accounts are still alive. I am still trying to find the sweet spot where automation actually provides value without being a constant headache.

---

Key stats:

• 33.0 percent overall post success rate
• 35 total failed post attempts this week
• 34 posts automatically skipped by safety filters
• 0 percent success rate in r/indiehackers across 15 attempts
• 113 total posts processed by the autopilot system

---

Current progress: 398 / 1000 users.

Previous post: Day 56 — Day 56 of sharing stats about my SaaS until I get 1000 users: Everyone is building for 'small business owners' but my data shows people only pay for specific niches

I've been dogfooding the autopilot feature for purplefree lately and the numbers are honestly pretty depressing. I built this safety filter to stop the bot from posting things that break subreddit rules or look too spammy, and it is working almost too well. Out of 113 scheduled posts, the system skipped 34 entirely and another 35 just straight up failed. That is a 33 percent success rate.

Some subreddits are just impossible. I tried targeting r/indiehackers and r/entrepreneurridealong with different strategies. Between those two, I had about 24 attempts and exactly 0 successful posts. Zero. My code just looks at the moderation settings and the current vibe of the sub and says nope, not worth getting banned today.

It is interesting because it shows the massive gap between what we want to automate and what Reddit actually allows. Even when I am the one controlling it, the system is rejecting two-thirds of the work because the risk of a ban is too high. If you are just blasting links without these kinds of checks, I have no idea how your accounts are still alive. I am still trying to find the sweet spot where automation actually provides value without being a constant headache.

---

Key stats:

• 33.0 percent overall post success rate
• 35 total failed post attempts this week
• 34 posts automatically skipped by safety filters
• 0 percent success rate in r/indiehackers across 15 attempts
• 113 total posts processed by the autopilot system

---

Current progress: 398 / 1000 users.

Previous post: Day 56 — Day 56 of sharing stats about my SaaS until I get 1000 users: Everyone is building for 'small business owners' but my data shows people only pay for specific niches

I've been digging into the 719 products people have added to purplefree and I noticed a pattern that's honestly a bit of a trap for founders. Everyone loves to say they target small business owners. I have 163 products in my database aiming for that exact audience. It's the default answer when you don't want to pick a side.

But when I look at the products that actually move past the demo phase and register, the generic stuff disappears. The people actually building real businesses are narrowing down fast. Digital marketing and real estate are the clear winners right now with 21 and 15 products respectively.

It makes sense. If you build for everyone, you build for nobody. The keywords like lead generation and web development are getting crowded because they are easy to understand. But the founders focusing on tax season stress or messy financial records are the ones finding actual pain points to solve. I'm starting to think 'small business owner' shouldn't even be an option in my onboarding.

I see 111 people using that broad label in my demo data but that number drops off hard once they get serious. It's a reminder to myself as much as anyone else: the riches are in the niches, even if it feels scary to exclude people at the start.

---

Key stats:

• 719 total products currently tracked in the database
• 163 products targeting the generic Small Business Owners audience
• 21 products focused specifically on the Digital Marketing industry
• 15 products targeting Real Estate as a primary niche
• 72.04 percent of products still sitting in the demo phase

---

Current progress: 393 / 1000 users

Previous post: Day 55 — Day 55 of sharing stats about my SaaS until I get 1000 users: 902 people asked for a demo but only 10 actually did something with their leads

I've been digging into the 719 products people have added to purplefree and I noticed a pattern that's honestly a bit of a trap for founders. Everyone loves to say they target small business owners. I have 163 products in my database aiming for that exact audience. It's the default answer when you don't want to pick a side.

But when I look at the products that actually move past the demo phase and register, the generic stuff disappears. The people actually building real businesses are narrowing down fast. Digital marketing and real estate are the clear winners right now with 21 and 15 products respectively.

It makes sense. If you build for everyone, you build for nobody. The keywords like lead generation and web development are getting crowded because they are easy to understand. But the founders focusing on tax season stress or messy financial records are the ones finding actual pain points to solve. I'm starting to think 'small business owner' shouldn't even be an option in my onboarding.

I see 111 people using that broad label in my demo data but that number drops off hard once they get serious. It's a reminder to myself as much as anyone else: the riches are in the niches, even if it feels scary to exclude people at the start.

---

Key stats:

• 719 total products currently tracked in the database
• 163 products targeting the generic Small Business Owners audience
• 21 products focused specifically on the Digital Marketing industry
• 15 products targeting Real Estate as a primary niche
• 72.04 percent of products still sitting in the demo phase

---

Current progress: 393 / 1000 users

Previous post: Day 55 — Day 55 of sharing stats about my SaaS until I get 1000 users: 902 people asked for a demo but only 10 actually did something with their leads

I've been digging into the 719 products people have added to purplefree and I noticed a pattern that's honestly a bit of a trap for founders. Everyone loves to say they target small business owners. I have 163 products in my database aiming for that exact audience. It's the default answer when you don't want to pick a side.

But when I look at the products that actually move past the demo phase and register, the generic stuff disappears. The people actually building real businesses are narrowing down fast. Digital marketing and real estate are the clear winners right now with 21 and 15 products respectively.

It makes sense. If you build for everyone, you build for nobody. The keywords like lead generation and web development are getting crowded because they are easy to understand. But the founders focusing on tax season stress or messy financial records are the ones finding actual pain points to solve. I'm starting to think 'small business owner' shouldn't even be an option in my onboarding.

I see 111 people using that broad label in my demo data but that number drops off hard once they get serious. It's a reminder to myself as much as anyone else: the riches are in the niches, even if it feels scary to exclude people at the start.

---

Key stats:

• 719 total products currently tracked in the database
• 163 products targeting the generic Small Business Owners audience
• 21 products focused specifically on the Digital Marketing industry
• 15 products targeting Real Estate as a primary niche
• 72.04 percent of products still sitting in the demo phase

---

Current progress: 393 / 1000 users

Previous post: Day 55 — Day 55 of sharing stats about my SaaS until I get 1000 users: 902 people asked for a demo but only 10 actually did something with their leads

I have been staring at my conversion funnel today and it is pretty brutal. I had 902 people hit the demo submission button which felt great at the time. But the reality is that over half of them (56.9%) just vanish before they even finish signing up. It is like this wall of silence where people get excited for a second and then remember they have ten other tabs open.

The real drop happens once they get their matches. Out of the 178 people who actually saw leads for their product, only 10 of them clicked a button to take action in the app. That looks like a 94.4% failure rate on paper. But I know for a fact people are just taking those leads and messaging them manually on X or Reddit without bothering to tell my app about it. It is a weird spot to be in as a dev because my dashboard says everything is failing while my actual users are just doing their work elsewhere.

I am still trying to figure out if I should care about that specific drop. If they are getting the value and leaving to close deals on their own, the app did its job. But seeing only 8 people 'follow through' out of 902 initial demo requests is a reminder that the top of the funnel is mostly just noise and tourists.

---

Key stats:

• 902 total demo submissions recorded
• 56.9 percent drop-off between demo and signup
• 178 users successfully generated lead matches
• 94.4 percent of users with matches handle actions outside the app
• 8 total users tracked a full follow-through in the UI

---

Current progress: 389 / 1000 users.

Previous post: Day 54 — Day 54 of sharing stats about my SaaS until I get 1000 users: My AI is confident about 9000 matches but my users only care about half of them

I have been staring at my conversion funnel today and it is pretty brutal. I had 902 people hit the demo submission button which felt great at the time. But the reality is that over half of them (56.9%) just vanish before they even finish signing up. It is like this wall of silence where people get excited for a second and then remember they have ten other tabs open.

The real drop happens once they get their matches. Out of the 178 people who actually saw leads for their product, only 10 of them clicked a button to take action in the app. That looks like a 94.4% failure rate on paper. But I know for a fact people are just taking those leads and messaging them manually on X or Reddit without bothering to tell my app about it. It is a weird spot to be in as a dev because my dashboard says everything is failing while my actual users are just doing their work elsewhere.

I am still trying to figure out if I should care about that specific drop. If they are getting the value and leaving to close deals on their own, the app did its job. But seeing only 8 people 'follow through' out of 902 initial demo requests is a reminder that the top of the funnel is mostly just noise and tourists.

---

Key stats:

• 902 total demo submissions recorded
• 56.9 percent drop-off between demo and signup
• 178 users successfully generated lead matches
• 94.4 percent of users with matches handle actions outside the app
• 8 total users tracked a full follow-through in the UI

---

Current progress: 389 / 1000 users.

Previous post: Day 54 — Day 54 of sharing stats about my SaaS until I get 1000 users: My AI is confident about 9000 matches but my users only care about half of them

I have been staring at my conversion funnel today and it is pretty brutal. I had 902 people hit the demo submission button which felt great at the time. But the reality is that over half of them (56.9%) just vanish before they even finish signing up. It is like this wall of silence where people get excited for a second and then remember they have ten other tabs open.

The real drop happens once they get their matches. Out of the 178 people who actually saw leads for their product, only 10 of them clicked a button to take action in the app. That looks like a 94.4% failure rate on paper. But I know for a fact people are just taking those leads and messaging them manually on X or Reddit without bothering to tell my app about it. It is a weird spot to be in as a dev because my dashboard says everything is failing while my actual users are just doing their work elsewhere.

I am still trying to figure out if I should care about that specific drop. If they are getting the value and leaving to close deals on their own, the app did its job. But seeing only 8 people 'follow through' out of 902 initial demo requests is a reminder that the top of the funnel is mostly just noise and tourists.

---

Key stats:

• 902 total demo submissions recorded
• 56.9 percent drop-off between demo and signup
• 178 users successfully generated lead matches
• 94.4 percent of users with matches handle actions outside the app
• 8 total users tracked a full follow-through in the UI

---

Current progress: 389 / 1000 users.

Previous post: Day 54 — Day 54 of sharing stats about my SaaS until I get 1000 users: My AI is confident about 9000 matches but my users only care about half of them

I have been staring at my conversion funnel today and it is pretty brutal. I had 902 people hit the demo submission button which felt great at the time. But the reality is that over half of them (56.9%) just vanish before they even finish signing up. It is like this wall of silence where people get excited for a second and then remember they have ten other tabs open.

The real drop happens once they get their matches. Out of the 178 people who actually saw leads for their product, only 10 of them clicked a button to take action in the app. That looks like a 94.4% failure rate on paper. But I know for a fact people are just taking those leads and messaging them manually on X or Reddit without bothering to tell my app about it. It is a weird spot to be in as a dev because my dashboard says everything is failing while my actual users are just doing their work elsewhere.

I am still trying to figure out if I should care about that specific drop. If they are getting the value and leaving to close deals on their own, the app did its job. But seeing only 8 people 'follow through' out of 902 initial demo requests is a reminder that the top of the funnel is mostly just noise and tourists.

---

Key stats:

• 902 total demo submissions recorded
• 56.9 percent drop-off between demo and signup
• 178 users successfully generated lead matches
• 94.4 percent of users with matches handle actions outside the app
• 8 total users tracked a full follow-through in the UI

---

Current progress: 389 / 1000 users.

Previous post: Day 54 — Day 54 of sharing stats about my SaaS until I get 1000 users: My AI is confident about 9000 matches but my users only care about half of them