r/indiebiz

For months, I saw other founders talking about Reddit as this goldmine for early traction, but every time I tried, it felt like walking through a minefield. I'd spend hours scrolling, trying to find relevant threads, carefully crafting replies, only to either get ignored or, worse, instantly flagged for self-promo. It was frustrating, inefficient, and honestly, a bit intimidating. The fear of getting banned from a valuable community was always lurking.

I realized the problem wasn't Reddit itself, but my approach. Most of us just dive in thinking "I need to market my SaaS here," when really, Reddit is about communities, solving problems, and being genuinely helpful. You can't just pitch; you have to earn the right to even hint at a solution.

So, I shifted my mindset. Instead of pushing my product, I focused on:

• Deep Listening: Really understanding the pain points people voiced, not just keywords.
• Community Rules: Treating each subreddit like a unique country with its own laws.
• Authentic Engagement: Participating in discussions where I could genuinely add value, even if it wasn't directly related to my SaaS.

This started to work. I built karma, made connections, and found a few legitimate opportunities to share my insights. But here's the kicker: it was still incredibly manual and time-consuming. Identifying threads with real buying intent among thousands, then drafting a reply that was both helpful and compliant with obscure subreddit rules? That was the biggest bottleneck.

That's why I started using a tool called Karmo. It basically turns Reddit from a time sink into a predictable lead-gen channel. What I love about it is how it watches my chosen subreddits, scores posts by buying intent, and surfaces only the high-value threads. Then, for each, it generates an on-brand reply in the subreddit’s native tone, while checking rules so I don’t get banned. It compresses discovery, drafting, and compliance into one pass, making Reddit actually usable as a growth channel. It even helps generate ban-proof posts for different goals, whether it’s sharing ideas, optimizing for SEO, or making a gentle pitch.

It’s been a game-changer for consistently finding and engaging with potential users without the constant fear of the ban hammer. If you're struggling to make Reddit work for your SaaS, I highly recommend adopting a community-first approach, and tools like Karmo can seriously streamline the most challenging parts.

What strategies have you found most effective for engaging with Reddit communities without crossing the line?

Managing investments across multiple apps is messy.

Arthavi helps you track your mutual funds and stocks together in one place, without spreadsheets or cluttered dashboards.

### 🚀 What it does

- Unified portfolio view (MF + stocks)

- Clean and minimal interface

- Simple performance tracking (no confusing metrics)

- AI-powered insights (early feature)

### 💡 Why it’s different

Most tools either:

- Focus only on stocks

- Or only on mutual funds

- Or overwhelm users with too many features

Arthavi is built for clarity and simplicity first.

### 👤 Who it’s for

- Long-term investors

- People tired of juggling multiple apps

- Anyone who wants a simple portfolio overview

### 🔗 Try it: https://arthavi.com

Would love feedback from the community 🙌

Hey everyone,

We recently crossed almost 1,000 downloads and around $300 in revenue with our first app.

Still small numbers, but enough to start learning real things from real users. Here are the biggest lessons so far:

1. ASO matters way more than I expected
Around 80–90% of our downloads come from App Store search. For a mobile app, ASO is not optional. Better keywords, screenshots, translations, and conversion rate can slowly compound into more visibility.

2. Always make it easy for users to give feedback
Some of our best product decisions came from users who reached out directly. A simple email, form, Reddit post, or feedback button can be enough.

3. Onboarding is probably the biggest revenue lever
If users don’t understand the value quickly, they leave. Small changes in onboarding, copy, screen order, and paywall timing can have a real impact.

4. Track everything that matters
You need to know where users come from, where they drop, what they use, what they ignore, and where they convert. Without analytics, you’re mostly guessing.

5. Translations can unlock unexpected markets
We translated the app into 8 languages and were surprised to see traction in places like Russia. Even when revenue is lower, more users means more feedback and more behavioral data.

6. US users monetize much better
For us, the US install-to-payment conversion rate is roughly 2x higher than the rest of the world. Other countries help us learn, but the US is where most of the revenue potential is.

7. Test a paywall during onboarding
Around 68% of our conversions happen before users even sign up. I know onboarding paywalls can be controversial, but for us it clearly matters.

8. Reviews are harder than they look
It took us several attempts to find a review prompt logic that actually worked. Timing matters a lot: not too early, not too late.

Main takeaway: the more data you have, the less you rely on your own assumptions. What you want as a founder doesn’t matter as much as what users actually do.

Our app is Paintly, a small app to learn art history through one artwork a day, in around 2 minutes.

Paintly is available on iOS and Android here if you want to try it:
https://taap.it/getpaintly

Happy to answer questions or debate any of this in the comments.

Hello everyone!

I am a founder of Poper, and we recently released quizzes and surveys on our platform. I would really appreciate if someone can test the product and give us the valuable feedback. It's free to sign up without a credit card.

For the past two years, I’ve been working on http://phrasing.app, a language learning application that makes it simple to learn and maintain multiple languages.

I built Phrasing for four main reasons:

1. *I wanted an app to learn multiple languages in parallel.* I don’t want to have to choose between improving a language I speak or learning a new language. I just want to open an app and ‘do languages’, and let technology decide what’s most effective for my goals 
2. *I wanted an app that was as pleasant to use as it was effective.* was I was tired of choosing between form or function. It takes hundreds to thousands of hours to learn a language. I want an app that is nice to look at and enjoyable to use, while maximizing for efficacy, not engagement. 
3. *I wanted an app that integrated spaced repetition & user experience.* Every spaced repetition application I’ve used has been a pure expression of the forgetting curve. This is maximally accurate… but also maximally stressful. The UX designer in me sobbed every time I used Anki. I want to enjoy my reviews, and would gladly sacrifice 1% of algorithmic accuracy if it means completing 2x the reviews. 
4. *I wanted an app to learn all languages.* This whole project actually was kick-started when I tried to learn Arabic, and struggled for months to find quality learning materials. And Arabic is a major language! There’s still a bit of work to go before I can support all languages, but it already supports ~90 languages really well.

 

I’ve been using Phrasing every day since May 2025, and I’ve been very happy with my progress. I’ve been able to study multiple languages, at various speeds, all without mixing them up and never really leaving the application.

I’ve been getting really good reviews from recent users, and I’m hoping that this project is helpful to other language learners & polyglots in the crowd.

Especially if you’re learning an underserved language, I really hope you’ll consider Phrasing! I would absolutely love to get at least one person learning every language we support.

Technically, this project is also a one person project, built with Elixir on the server and ClojureScript on the client. It’s gone through probably 5 major versions, and the most recent version hand rolls nearly everything. As a solo dev I’m always more than happy to talk about the technology 😃

We're live on product hunt! Any upvotes, comments, and shares would really go a long way 🙏 

https://www.producthunt.com/products/phrasing-app-to-fluency-and-beyond?utm_source=other&utm_medium=social

PS: if this project is interesting to anyone who is looking to set off on their own, I’m actively looking for a co-founder 😃 (Europe only)

[Web, Live] — live on the shopify app store this week after 6 months of solo building. looking for honest feedback from people running real stores.

the problem it solves: standard analytics counts a click as a click. on a friends store, GA4 showed great engagement while she barely converted. watching real sessions, her engaged visitors were stuck. clicking images that werent links. a lagging button. add to cart hit 4 times then abandoned. all logged as engagement.

it separates four things standard tools dont: dead clicks, rage clicks, clicks that go nowhere within 900ms, and cursor thrash before a bounce. shows where, on which element, on which page.

live as DynoWeb - https://apps.shopify.com/dynoweb

specifically want feedback on whether the dead click detection false-triggers on slow-loading interactive elements. happy to test others products back, drop yours.

PreSeedVCList covers 390 venture capital firms actively writing pre-seed checks, with data on firm websites, investment stages, sectors, office locations, and portfolio links, structured from recent funding activity and updated monthly at https://preseedvclist.com.

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/betsfriends/id6761031275

Imagine a game like clash of clans but in order to level up, your xp and in game currency are earned by your ability to predict real life sporting events. That’s where we are heading with this. All the fun of gambling without any risk of financial ruin. Hope you can see the value in that!

Hey everyone, I'm the solo developer behind an app called BetsFriends, and I'm at the point where I really need real people to try it and tell me the truth about it.

Here is the simple version of what it is. On the surface it is a game. You make sports picks, and when you get them right you earn XP and units, you level up through tiers, and you build out a custom avatar with accessories that reflects how good you actually are. It is genuinely fun and a little addicting to climb. But underneath that game is something I built for people who actually follow sports closely: a real tool for tracking picks, comparing yourself to other people, and seeing who actually knows what they are talking about.

Here is what is in it right now:
Make your picks. Call games across multiple sports and markets, and your results follow you.

XP, units, and tiers. Correct picks earn XP and units. You level up through tiers, and your profile shows your standing. Units also let you unlock avatar accessories, so progression actually means something visually.

Custom avatar system. Build a character with layered accessories. It is tied to your record, so your avatar is basically your reputation that other people can see.

See everyone's picks. This is the real handicapping layer. You can see other people's picks, share your own, and follow sharp pickers instead of guessing in the dark.

Records and history. Look at anyone's full pick history and track record over time. No more people claiming they "had it" after the fact. The receipts are right there.

Best picker per team. See who is actually the sharpest on a specific team, not just overall. If someone is elite on one team's games, that is incredibly useful information, and the app surfaces it.

Live scoreboard with live chat. Follow games live and talk through them in real time with other people who have action on the same game. The games are more fun when you are watching them with people.

Leaderboards and competition. It is built around friendly competition. The whole point is proving you are the sharpest, with zero money involved. No deposits, no losses, no chasing anything. Just skill and bragging rights.

The reason I am posting is honest. It is still early and there are not a lot of users yet. An app like this only comes alive when real people are in it, picking against each other and sharing records. I would rather have a small group of people who actually use it and tell me what is broken than a big number that means nothing.

So here is my ask. If any of this sounds interesting, I would really appreciate it if you would download it, make picks for a few days, and then tell me what you actually think. What is confusing, what is missing, what made you want to come back or not. Brutal feedback helps me more than polite feedback. Being this early means the things you flag genuinely shape where this goes next.

I also want to be straight about why this matters. I am one person building this, and I have a lot more I want to add. Things like a battle pass, deeper progression, bigger competition, and more reasons to keep coming back. But I can only justify pushing that further if there are real people here using what already exists. Every person who tries it and gives me honest feedback is literally what lets me keep building.

It is just me. No big company behind this. I am building something I think should exist, and your support and your honesty are what move it forward.

If you have questions, or you just want to tell me what sucks and why, reply here or DM me. I read and answer everything.

My edge AI company is up and running. Venture's have been launched and we are driving toward our first revenue. Check out the build, the whole process is document! Jetson is the core!

Greg @ BlackBox AI Lab - YouTube

What it is: Opinion Outpost Tech. You post or react to opinions (anything — politics, books, your job, a movie). AI extracts the underlying beliefs into a "Cognitive DNA" profile. Over time it shows you how your views drift, where you contradict yourself, and what you've quietly abandoned.

Why I built it: I wanted a longitudinal record of me, not photos, not journals, but the actual structure of how I think. There's no product for this.

Tech: React + R3F (3D neural field viz), Supabase, edge functions, Gemini 3 Flash for extraction, MCP server so external AI can read your DNA.

Live features:

• Daily reflection prompt (streak-based)
• Opinion of the Week
• 3D "Mind" view that reconstructs your belief network
• Chrome extension for highlighting + passive attention tracking
• AI chat that knows your beliefs
• "Therapist mode" that's been weirdly useful

What I'm stuck on:

• Onboarding feels heavy — too much before the "aha"
• Not sure if "social discovery" (seeing other people's DNAs) helps or distracts
• Retention beyond week 1 is the real test

Honest feedback wanted. Especially from people who'd never use this – tell me why.

https://opinionoutpost.tech/

Spent the last few weeks building Pattern — Personal Pattern AI.

It reads your:

• Apple Watch data
• calendar
• focus sessions

All on device.

Then it writes one paragraph a day:

The pattern you would have missed in a chart.

The one that hooked me:

My deep-tagged sessions almost all started above 55ms HRV.

The shallow ones were mostly below 42ms.

No matter how hard I pushed.

Focus tracked recovery, not willpower.

A few things I cared about from day one:

• 100% on device
• local AI
• no subscription

Solo build.

No funding.

Live on the App Store now:

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/pattern-personal-pattern-ai/id6766061942

Happy to answer anything about:

• the build
• the on-device LLM stack
• going subscription-free