Founder Playbook · Starter Story
5 tactics from Anish
How I Used Reddit To Build a $25K/Month Business
Watch the full episode“After about three and a half months I had built out all of the core functionality that members of the community were just straight up telling me about. At that point I messaged the moderator and said 'Hey are you still okay with me doing a top-level post?' They said yes and I went ahead and posted and it blew up.”
Three months of weekly comments validates product and earns a viral top post
Anish spent 3.5 months responding in weekly comment threads on Reddit, collecting real feature requests from his target users. Only after shipping that feedback did he ask a moderator for permission to make a top-level post, which then went viral and became his primary growth event.
“I wrote a SQL query that literally put together this list based on the data that my product had. I posted a link to this sheet in this post and when a member of the group opened this sheet they would be met with this list — but then what they also saw was the link to my website where all of the data was actually coming from. I had over 1,500 people visit the website just from posting this spreadsheet.”
A free spreadsheet with embedded link drove 1,500 site visits from one post
Instead of pitching his product directly, Anish generated genuine value for a Facebook group by querying his own database and sharing the results as a free spreadsheet. The product link was visible inside the sheet, turning a helpful post into a high-converting acquisition channel.
“I learned consumers hate subscriptions. The day I launched a subscription product I had several emails from members asking for a lifetime membership where they were willing to pay for two plus years worth of the pro membership all upfront. That is now about 97% of the revenue.”
Customers demanded lifetime plans; 97% of revenue is now one-time payments
Anish initially launched Save Wise as a subscription product, expecting recurring revenue. Within a day of launch, paying customers overwhelmingly pushed back and requested a one-time lifetime option instead — a demand so strong it now accounts for 97% of all revenue.
“When you join these Reddit and Facebook groups do not initially post in those groups. Some of the things that I would try to pay attention to were what were the kinds of things people were talking about and how were they talking about them. That gave me a really good way to brainstorm what was the way to actually enter into the conversation.”
Lurk for weeks to learn community tone before posting a single word
Anish spent weeks observing target communities before posting anything. Understanding the tone and topics of each group let him craft posts that felt native rather than promotional, which was critical since overt self-promotion would have gotten him ignored or banned.
“Once I figured out a way to just organically and naturally be helpful by giving tips to people on how to earn credit card points online — which is very related to my product — that then earned me the right to also mention my product in some of these comments and posts.”
Give genuine value first, then earn the right to mention your product
Rather than pitching Save Wise directly, Anish spent time answering questions and sharing genuinely useful advice in credit card and travel communities. This built credibility and goodwill before any product mention.