From 0 to 1,000 Karma: How We're Building Vibeddit in Public on Reddit

When we started building Vibeddit, we faced an obvious question: how do you build a Reddit marketing tool if you don't have Reddit credibility yourself?

The answer was simple. We had to earn it.

This isn't a success story with all the answers. We're still in the middle of it. But as founders who believe in building in public, we wanted to share what we've learned so far—the wins, the mistakes, and the uncomfortable truths about growing on Reddit.

Where We Started: Zero

In October 2025, we had exactly what you'd expect from a technical founder with no Reddit history:

• Multiple accounts with <100 karma each
• No established presence in any community
• No idea which subreddits would be receptive to our eventual product
• A healthy fear of getting banned

We knew the theory of Reddit marketing. We'd read the guides. We understood "value first." But there's a gap between knowing and doing.

The First 30 Days: Painful Lurking

We committed to a rule: no product mentions for the first 30 days. Just contribution.

What we did:

• Identified 15 subreddits relevant to our target audience (founders, marketers, productivity enthusiasts)
• Spent 30 minutes each morning reading new posts
• Answered questions only when we genuinely had something useful to say
• Tracked which comments got engagement and which disappeared

What we learned:

• Most subreddits have 3-5 "hot hours" when engagement peaks
• Short, specific comments outperform long, generic advice
• Questions that validate the asker's experience get upvotes
• r/startups and r/entrepreneur are extremely hostile to anything promotional
• r/indiehackers on Reddit is much more welcoming than we expected

First uncomfortable truth: This was boring. There's no dopamine hit from lurking. No vanity metrics going up. Just slow, invisible progress.

The First Mistake: Going Too Fast

Around week 3, we got impatient.

We found a perfect thread in r/SaaS: someone asking about tools for Reddit outreach. This was literally our future product category. We wrote a thoughtful comment about the challenges of Reddit marketing, mentioned that we were building something in this space, and asked if anyone else was interested.

The result: -8 karma, comment removed by moderators, and a 7-day ban.

Lesson learned: Even a relevant, thoughtful comment looks like spam when you don't have established credibility in that community. We had karma, but not there. Community-specific reputation matters.

Days 31-60: Finding Our Groove

After the ban expired, we regrouped with a new strategy:

Focus on fewer subreddits. Instead of spreading thin across 15 communities, we picked 5 where we could develop real presence:

• r/indiehackers
• r/SideProject
• r/growmybusiness
• r/productivity
• r/ADHD (many of our target users)

Become a regular. We aimed to comment in each subreddit at least 3x per week. Not about our product—just genuinely helpful stuff.

Track everything. We built a simple spreadsheet: | Date | Subreddit | Comment Type | Karma Result | Replies | Notes | |------|-----------|--------------|--------------|---------|-------|

What worked:

• Sharing specific numbers from our experience: "We got 47 signups from a single Reddit thread last month" performed better than generic advice
• Asking follow-up questions: "What specifically isn't working?" builds relationships
• Admitting failure: "We tried X and it bombed" gets more engagement than success stories

What didn't work:

• Long, comprehensive answers (too much for Reddit's attention span)
• Posting the same advice across multiple threads (looks automated)
• Commenting on old posts (waste of time—no one sees it)

The Karma Accumulation

Here's our actual karma progression:

• Day 1: ~200 combined karma
• Day 30: ~850 karma
• Day 60: ~2,400 karma
• Day 90: ~4,100 karma

The growth wasn't linear. We had spikes when a comment hit (one comment in r/productivity got 340 upvotes), and plateaus when we were busy with actual product development.

Key insight: Karma compounds. Higher karma = more visibility on your comments = more karma. But it takes about 60 days of consistent activity before you feel the flywheel effect.

When We Finally Mentioned the Product

Around day 75, we started mentioning Vibeddit—but only in specific contexts:

1. When directly asked: "What tools are you using for this?" → "We're actually building one called Vibeddit. Happy to share when it's ready."

2. In building-in-public contexts: Posts explicitly about what indie hackers are working on.

3. When it was the genuine best answer: Someone asked about finding Reddit posts for their niche. Our tool does exactly that. Mentioning it was appropriate.

Never:

• Unprompted product drops
• "By the way, we have a tool for this..."
• Comment + product link without context

The result: Zero bans. Positive reception. Several people asking to be notified about launch.

What We'd Do Differently

Start earlier. Reddit credibility takes months to build. If you're thinking about Reddit marketing for a future product, start building accounts now—before you need them.

Focus even more narrowly. We spread across 5 subreddits. We probably should have started with 2-3 and gone deeper before expanding.

Comment in the first hour. Early comments get more visibility. We missed a lot of opportunities by commenting on posts that were already 6+ hours old.

Save the best comments. We wrote some genuinely good advice that we can't find anymore. Now we log everything useful for potential repurposing.

The Meta Point: We're Using Vibeddit on Ourselves

As we've built the product, we've been using early versions to manage our own Reddit presence.

• Discovery: The tool identifies relevant posts across our target subreddits before they go cold
• Analysis: It scores posts for engagement potential so we know where to focus
• Drafting: We generate draft replies that we then edit and polish

We're not just building a tool—we're living it. Every feature we add comes from friction we experienced ourselves. Every anti-pattern we flag comes from mistakes we made.

Where We Are Now

As of this writing:

• ~4,500 karma across accounts
• Established presence in 5 subreddits
• Comfortable posting about the product when relevant
• A waitlist of people who found us through Reddit

We're not Reddit famous. We're not even Reddit notable. But we have enough credibility to participate in conversations about our product space without getting banned.

That took 90+ days of consistent work. There was no shortcut.

What This Means for You

If you're thinking about Reddit marketing:

1. Start now. Not when you launch—now. Build the accounts before you need them.
2. Expect 60+ days before it feels productive. The early period is an investment, not a return.
3. Pick 3 subreddits max to start. Depth beats breadth.
4. Track your activity. What you measure improves.
5. Be patient with yourself. You'll make mistakes. The karma loss isn't permanent.

We're still on this journey ourselves. Every week teaches us something new about what works, what doesn't, and how to build authentic presence in a space that's hostile to marketing.

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Want to follow along with our build-in-public journey? Join the Vibeddit waitlist and we'll share our learnings as we go.