How I used Reddit & Facebook to build a $25K/month business

Key Concepts:

• Save Wise: A platform for earning credit card points and airline miles on online purchases.
• Reddit and Facebook Groups: Key platforms for initial user acquisition.
• Five-Step Playbook: A structured approach to finding users on social platforms.
• Target Customer Understanding: Crucial for both product development and marketing.
• Lifetime Membership: A revenue model preferred by Save Wise customers over subscriptions.

1. Introduction and Background

• Anish, the founder of Save Wise, shares his journey of building a platform to automate the process of earning credit card points and airline miles.
• He previously worked at tech companies like Microsoft, Instagram, Foursquare, and Dropbox.
• Save Wise started slowly but has grown to $25,000 in monthly revenue within 15 months.

2. The Problem and Solution

• Anish identified a personal problem: the manual process of finding deals, coupons, and stacking credit card points.
• He found no existing product that solved this problem, leading him to create Save Wise.

3. Initial Marketing Attempts and Failures

• Initial efforts on Product Hunt, Hacker News, and Indie Hackers generated traffic but resulted in a 95-96% bounce rate and no meaningful feedback.
• Outreach to 300-400 influencers yielded only one response, highlighting the difficulty of engaging influencers with an unproven product.

4. The Successful Strategy: Reddit and Facebook Groups

• The turning point was focusing on Reddit and Facebook groups specifically related to travel, credit card points, and product usage.
• This targeted approach proved more effective than broader platforms.

5. Five-Step Playbook for User Acquisition

• Step 1: Brainstorm Keywords: Identify 5-15 keywords, interests, and demographics relevant to the target audience. Use tools like the "Map of Reddit" to discover related communities. The Map of Reddit tool visually maps out related subreddits based on a seed subreddit.
• Step 2: Observe and Listen: Before posting, observe the community's conversations, tone, and etiquette to understand how to engage effectively.
• Step 3: Define Goals: Determine the specific goal for posting in each community (e.g., gather feedback, drive initial product trials). Start with comments to gauge resonance before creating top-level posts.
• Step 4: Set Up Keyword Alerts: Use tools like F5bot to receive real-time notifications when relevant keywords are mentioned on Reddit and Facebook.
• Step 5: Be Helpful: Provide valuable advice and tips related to the product's domain to build credibility and earn the right to mention the product.

6. Case Study: Facebook Group Example

• Anish found a Facebook group called "Rakitin Stacks: How to double dip with Rakitin."
• He created a SQL query to generate a list of stores with Rakuten and American Express offers.
• Posting a link to this spreadsheet in the group drove over 1,500 website visits.
• The spreadsheet contained a link to Save Wise, driving traffic and potential users.

7. Case Study: Reddit Example

• Anish joined a relevant Reddit community and participated in weekly Q&A threads for several weeks.
• He gathered feedback and built core functionality based on community suggestions.
• After three and a half months, he obtained permission from the moderator to create a top-level post.
• The post "blew up," demonstrating the effectiveness of engaging with the community before promoting the product.

8. Business Metrics and Revenue Model

• Save Wise is generating approximately $25,000 in monthly revenue.
• The platform has tens of thousands of users, with about 1,500 paying customers.
• The majority (97%) of customers prefer a lifetime membership over monthly or yearly subscriptions.

9. Tech Stack

• Frontend: Next.js, hosted on Vercel.
• Backend: Data processing and database architecture hosted on Azure.
• Data Interaction: Retool.
• User Authentication: Clerk (Google, Apple sign-in).
• Experimentation: Vzero.
• Product Analytics: PostHog.
• AI Tools: ChatGPT, Copilot, Cursor.
• Website Traffic Analysis: Google Analytics.

10. Advice for Aspiring Entrepreneurs

• Understanding the target customer is crucial not only for product development but also for marketing and identifying where to find them online.
• "Understanding your target customer and everything about them is even more useful for the marketing part of it and going to market figuring out where do my target customers hang out on the internet."

11. Conclusion

• Anish's success with Save Wise demonstrates the power of targeted marketing on platforms like Reddit and Facebook groups.
• The five-step playbook provides a structured approach to engaging with online communities and acquiring initial users.
• Understanding the target customer is paramount for both product development and effective marketing strategies.