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My post got to the top 1 of the month in 1 day at r/startups (1.1M subs). But they've banned me.

Hey!

I hope my reddit story will be useful for you.

I've posted an article to r/startups subreddit and it grew quickly. I've got 60k views and 200+ upvotes. It puts article to top #1 of the month + will probably will get to top of the year.

article

Also my other article is top #3 of the year in r/startups.

But they've banned me. Here's why:

I haven't included any self-promotion or links in the article.

But I shared a link to my YouTube video to some of the comments. The video was relevant to the question and I've added a text comment to give value. I was also explicit that it's video recorded by me.

Previously I was banned for 2 weeks for no reason. I believe it because I included links in the post. None of the links were associated with me.

So I've got a permanent ban now that I can discuss in 30 days with them. Their mods are harsh.

img

I hope creating an engaging popular content for their subreddit is qualified as a "great reason to give me another chance".

So my advice — be careful with sharing links early after you submitted a post. I've shared the same link in other article after 3 weeks and it was good.


PS (self-promoting 😅)

If you new to building in public — try Momentum to launch your page, analytics and social feed in seconds.

One of the core future features will be articles distribution. I'm researching different channels: Reddit/Twitter/LinkedIn/IndieHackers.

  1. 13

    Mods over at r/startups are absolutely miserable, avoid that place at all costs.

    Fortunately there are other good subreddits as alternatives such as r/SaaS, r/entrepeneur, r/entrepreneurridealong or r/sideproject :)

    1. 2

      Mods at most of the active subs are miserable.

    2. 1

      r/entrepeneur is not any better the mods are terrible

      1. 2

        Had some ok experiences there but yeah, heard they can be bad too.

        Actually thinking about creating a tier list of subreddits just for launches.

    3. 1

      This is the case with mostly all subreddits.

    4. 1

      Thank you for recommendations! Will definitely check them out.

      Are other subreddit more open to self-promotion? Like submitting the links or promoting product directly?

      Is there any good guide on it?

      1. 3

        Some of them are more open to it but you should always find the grey area between providing value first and only then plugging your stuff if it makes sense.

        And there are some guides for sure but none of them are very definitive as every subreddit has its own set of mods and rules which shifts the grey area a little bit.

  2. 5

    I've had the same experience there. Also banned. I hate that subreddit. Feels like the mods are unsuccessful wanna be founders feeling like the only way to run a valuable forum is to ban everything even slightly resembling promotion.

    I told them it's healthy when you share your experience / knowledge that you can either plug stuff for context or even plug your product. It's a good exchange.

  3. 3

    It is like that with any other platform. Posting on social media is the same as eating chocolate, taking a loan from the bank, or visiting a bordel. It might be appealing initially, but there is a certain point in your life you will regret doing it for sure.

    When you invest your time and effort in these platforms, you are not helping your own product and your business. Instead, you are helping these other people's businesses and building their traffic and content for them.

    Whenever you want to post something on social media, stop there and think twice before doing it. You should be better off doing it on your own website or blog. Build your own house, do not pay somebody else's mortgage...

  4. 3

    Welcome to the club.

    I got an email from Reddit congratulating me on being a Reddit expert; in reply I asked for access to my account.

    1. 1

      haha lol, it seems I'll need to do the same

  5. 3

    Some of the Reddit Mods are pure idiots!

    1. 1

      Hope there are some good guys!

  6. 2

    Next time try your best to give them a great reason, Igor.

    1. 1

      They won't let me, I've tried 🤷

  7. 2

    This particular subreddit is really unpredictable. Post there a few times; over time, posts began to grow rapidly, and only when this occurred were posts removed by moderators. No rapid growth for the post—no removal. The only response I received was to contact the moderators, who advised me to read the rules before posting.

    So, just unsubscribe from the subreddit and forget about it. Reddit is huge, and there are a lot of very predictable subreddits: /r/Entrepreneur/, /r/Marketing etc

    1. 1

      Thank you for recommendations!

      What other subreddits are good for learning / promoting?

      1. 2

        /r/ Sales is amazing

  8. 2

    If you go to YouTube and search "Reddit Mod..." the first suggestion is "reddit modetors power trip". I'll leave it at that.

    1. 2

      haha

      yeah I didn't feel good the night after after chatting with them

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        "Say to yourself in the early morning: I shall meet today ungrateful, violent, treacherous, envious, uncharitable men. All of these things have come upon them through ignorance of real good and ill... I can neither be harmed by any of them, for no man will involve me in wrong, nor can I be angry with my kinsman or hate him; for we have come into the world to work together.", Marcus Aurelius

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          Love it! I'll always welcome a reminder from Marcus. Brilliant.

  9. 1

    When I read some subreddit rules in the sidebar, seems like everything is prohibited and it is not worth to post at all :)

  10. 1

    Happened same with us at corpora AI, our post reached around 264k views and suddenly banned.

  11. 1

    Sometimes, posting on Reddit is like paying someone else's bills.🥴 When you pay someone else's bills, you feel shortchanged😫. I felt shortchanged when Reddit banned me from r/environment😩. I'm still feeling short changed over the ban that came without any reason.

  12. 1

    Reddit? the subreddit has rules where you won't have any rights.
    I build a SaaS product called Fordeer: Invoice Order Printer that works on the Shopify platform.
    https://apps.shopify.com/fordeer-data-export?st_source=autocomplete&utm_source=group_indiehacker&utm_medium=traffic
    Our product was released just a few days ago and I have a marketing plan on Reddit and I was shocked that I couldn't get a post to be shown or accepted despite having read through the rules very carefully. .
    I'll definitely be looking to get familiar with the platform and take a non-breaking approach.

  13. 1

    I got banned from /r/startups for posting a story about product hunt :/ not even a link to, just a story that referenced the company.

    1. 1

      Yeah I imagine if I'd be that mod it would piss me off :D

  14. 1

    I am still new in the world on startup and I find this post very valuable.
    I have a concern right now
    I am building a digital online marketplace to connect buyers and sellers to search , buy , sell websites and apps, plugins and theme online and I am sharing my progress each week on linkedin.
    As software engineer, I have experience flipping website online but now I am building my own Sass.
    I started first by building a Tool to help anyone to search domain online
    here is my linkedin below
    https://www.linkedin.com/in/gabriel-fono/
    I am wondering where I should share my progress here on indiehackers.com
    and reddit.com
    I would love to launch feature for my MVP each week.
    please help me here
    thanks

    1. 1

      Thank you Gabriel!

      First, it's really great that you have a target to release a feature weekly. It's very important to have regular releases with announcements. So you're on the right way!

      I don't feel like LinkedIn is the right place for building in public now, but it may change soon.

      The standard advice would be to go with Twitter for building in public + going to indiehackers for seek help and advice + share your wins/struggles.

      Reddit is a great place as it's has huuuge traffic (it's one of the most popular websites in the world). So it's relatively easy to get views on your articles without audience. But as this post states — reddit moderators are harsh and will often ban you for self-promotion.

      Be careful with providing value to the questions upfront before sharing your link.

      PS I'm building the tool that will help you to grow your startup. You can launch a landing page with analytics and email capture in seconds + embed your linkedin / other social media feed on your website.

      Try it here: https://mmntm.build/feed

  15. 1

    My favorite are the shadowbans for sharing a picture of a babe with a beautiful smile wearing your favorite hockey jersey.

    jv confused

    p.s. - Hang in there bud, one of these days we'll get the address of that mod and T.P. his house...

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