James Smith

This is a small test of your financial literacy and entrepreneurial mindset. :)

The art is mostly about making the most of the least, so share your approach to situations where you have to be creative.

Hey Product Hunt community!

I'm diving into the world of bootstrapping and want to build something amazing without spending a dime. I know many of you have been there starting from scratch, hustling with free tools, and leveraging creativity to grow.

Let s share our best tips, hacks, and stories! What free tools, platforms, or strategies have you used to launch or scale a project on a $0 budget? From no-cost marketing tactics to open-source software or scrappy growth hacks, spill the beans!

1. Effort results
I ve spent hours on posts that got 0 attention. I wrote my most viral post in 10 minutes while having morning coffee. You never know what will take off. Don't overthink it, just start writing and posting.
2. Don't be afraid to help competitors
Some people say building in public I only give my competitors an advantage. That's is partly true. At least 2 people reached out and said they built a similar product after my posts.
But first, this is great - the more the merrier, and the market is big enough for everybody.
Second, your real edge is not the tech you are using. It's the attention to the product you can generate. And social media is the only way to achieve it if you don't have millions for marketing.
3. Reddit hate is brutal
If your post has even a faint smell of promotion - people will hate you on Reddit. And when they do, they hate firecely. Expect a lot of angry DMs and downvotes.
4. Share your REAL struggles
The only way to avoid this and still get views, is being real. Share scary and cringy stuff. If you feel like you re gonna burn from shame after posting - it means you are posting the right thing.
5. Post on the right subs
Not all Reddit subs are equal. Most ban promotion posts. I always post on r/SideProject or r/SaaS. They are friendly to builders and your story will more likely resonate there.
6. Adjacent audiences rock
Some say builder subs are useless, because only your competitors hang out there. This is not true.
After my viral post on r/SaaS, I got a lot of leads for Yadaphone. Turned out many people on r/Saas and r/SideProject are freelancers, business owners and digital nomads. They all needed a cheap overseas call solution and I got a ton of new paying customers.
7. Not posting a link works
Avoid including a link to your product in Reddit posts. First, it s the quickest way to get banned for promotion. Second, if people like your product, they will google it, and it s a huge boost for SEO. Just share the name of the product in the post or wait until somebody asks for the link in the comments (somebody always does).
8. Non-native English is an advantage
This is a bonus for all non-native speakers out there. I used to push all my texts through ChatGPT to fix style and mistakes. And it only got me downvoted because people thought my texts were AI-generated.
Now I just write and post stuff as is. Making mistakes shows you are human, and Reddit values that over your perfect English
P.S. avoid the em dash at all costs, this is a clear sign you used AI (even if you didn t).
If your are curious about my viral post in r/SaaS, you can read it here. By the way, please upvote if you like it!
https://www.reddit.com/r/SaaS/co...