How Indie Hackers Get the First Users for a Side Project

Two kinds of community: feedback venues and buyer venues

The usual advice is to post the launch in the maker subreddits and wait. Those communities are useful, but mostly for feedback. GummySearch's page on r/SideProject describes it as a subreddit for sharing side projects and getting constructive feedback, and a GummySearch snapshot of r/microsaas from October 2026 lists self-promotion as its most common kind of post. The readers are builders like you. They will tell you the landing page is unclear; few of them need your tool.

Buyer venues are organised around a problem: a subreddit for freelancers, for a hobby, for a trade, for users of a bigger tool your product plugs into. Nobody there cares that you are a maker, only whether something does the job they asked about. That is where the first ten users usually are.

What a first-user request looks like

The threads worth your hour are narrow. The wording below is ours, written to show the pattern:

• “Is there a simple tool that turns a Notion page into a public changelog?”
• “Looking for a cheap uptime monitor for three hobby sites. Any decent free tiers?”
• “Is there a one-time-purchase alternative to this subscription app?”
• “Is this little tool still maintained? The last update looks old.”

Each names a job, a constraint (cheap, simple, no subscription) and often a tool the person already tried. If your side project does that job, a short honest reply is one of the few self-mentions strangers welcome. See how to answer “what tool do you use” threads for the shape of a good answer, and how to find the subreddits where your buyers ask for the searches.

The rules that apply to a solo maker

Reddit's rules ask you to take part authentically in communities you care about, not to spam, and not to mislead people about who you are. They do not forbid mentioning something you made. Reddit's help page on spam tells people whose posts are mostly links to their own business to think about how often they post, and says moderators decide what counts as spam in their community. Pasting the same link into many threads matches its examples, and can cost the account, not only the post.

The Show HN guidelines require something people can try, and something non-trivial: a quickly generated one-off does not count. Landing pages, sign-up pages and blog posts do not qualify either, you should be in the thread to answer questions, and you may not ask friends to push the post up or comment on it. A waitlist is not ready for Show HN.

On X, the Authenticity policy counts bulk, unsolicited replies and mentions as spam, and the automation rules do not allow automated replies sent only because a post matched a keyword search. The same rules say an AI reply bot needs X's prior written approval before it runs, so wiring up your own is not a weekend shortcut. A person who reads a post and answers it is not what the automation rule describes, as long as the replies are not bulk. More in how brands should reply on X.

If a reply mentions a product you built, say so in that reply. The FTC's endorsement FAQ says naming your company in your profile is not enough, because readers of one post may never open the profile. One line does it: “I made this, so I'm biased.” More wording in our disclosure templates.

A plan for the first ten users

1. Write down the job
   Who has the problem, and the words they would type when asking. “Freelancer who invoices two clients a month” beats “small businesses”.
2. Find three buyer venues
   Search for those words, then read each community's rules and a few weeks of threads. Skip any that bans mentions of your own work.
3. Launch once, for feedback
   Post in one maker community, and on Show HN once people can try the product, ideally without signing up. Ask one specific question.
4. Answer without the product first
   Spend a couple of weeks answering questions you know well, with no link. Reddit's help pages say some communities require a certain amount of karma before you can post; Reddit karma requirements explains why there is no single number.
5. Reply to matching requests
   Answer the question first, name one or two other options honestly, then add one line saying you made yours and who it suits.
6. Log every conversation
   Thread, question, your reply, what happened. A user you can trace to a named thread tells you which community to stay in.

Watch conversations started and users who came from a specific thread. Praise from other makers on launch day can feel like traction while sending nobody to the sign-up page.

Building in public on X: reply first

Building in public works when posts carry something a reader can use: what you tried, what broke, what a user asked for. With no followers, a useful reply under a post people already read goes further than your own post. Reply more than you post.

You will read that X shows posts with outside links to fewer people. Articles making that claim cite marketing blogs rather than X, and we did not find it in X's help pages. Treat it as a guess and test it on your own posts.

Where Agent Agency fits, and where it does not

The slow part of the plan is reading. Agent Agency reads the communities where your buyers ask, reads each community's rules first, and drafts replies from your Product DNA: a summary written from up to five public pages of your link, which you approve. Reddit and X are live; YouTube is in testing.

For a side project with no reputation yet, the founder's voice is most of the credibility, and generic replies use up what little trust a new account has. So we suggest Approve mode: every post, comment and DM waits for your OK. Autopilot, where agents act inside the rules and limits you set, does not replace talking to the people who sign up. Disclosure is your decision as the operator, and platform rules and the law expect a reply that mentions your product to show the connection. Unsure which account to use? Read brand account or founder account.

The agent keeps to daily limits and quiet hours, and every skip comes with a reason. If Reddit restricts an account, the agent stops working on it, and we don't hand out a fresh one to get around a ban. See how it works, and the page for SaaS founders once you have paying users.

Questions

How long should a new Reddit account wait before mentioning its product?

There is no single number. Reddit's help pages say some communities require a certain amount of karma before you can post there, and the bar differs from one community to the next. If you bring your own account to Agent Agency, we recommend one at least 30 days old with some history. Either way, answer without links for a while first.

Do I have to say I built it every time?

Plan on it, in every reply that mentions it. Reddit's rules ask you not to mislead people about who you are. The FTC's endorsement FAQ says listing your employer on your profile is not enough, and that followers may miss a disclosure made in an earlier post. One short sentence naming your connection is enough.

Add your product link to the waitlist and see the Product DNA we would write from it. Invites go out in small batches, and joining the waitlist is free. Join the waitlist