He used Reddit & Facebook to build a $25K/month business | Starter Story

The business started "really slow," but fifteen months later it was doing $25,000 a month in revenue—with zero dollars spent on marketing. The founder, Avniche, built his entire user base by posting in Reddit communities and Facebook groups. One single post "took me from single thousands of users to tens of thousands of users." In this conversation with Pat Walls, he breaks down the exact playbook that made it work, and more importantly, why most people fail when they try the same thing.

The core mechanism: giving before you take

The fundamental mistake most founders make in online communities is that they show up to promote. Avniche's approach is the opposite: he spends weeks or months contributing value before ever mentioning his product. "The first thing you need to do is find the communities where your target audience hangs out," he says, but the critical step is what comes next. You need to "understand the problems they're facing" by reading posts, comments, and questions. Only then do you start engaging—answering questions, offering advice, sharing insights—without any link or mention of your own work.