---
name: reddit-reply-not-pitch
description: "Helps a founder find customers on Reddit without getting banned or downvoted, by being genuinely useful in public and letting conversations come to them. Checks community rules, drafts helpful replies, and judges when a private message is welcome. Use for Reddit marketing strategy, how to promote on Reddit, Reddit self-promotion rules, messaging people on Reddit, or \"how do I find customers on Reddit\"."
---

# Reddit: reply, don't pitch

On Reddit, the useful comment is the marketing.

Reddit is one of the best places to find people describing their problems in detail. It's also one of the fastest places to get banned for selling to them. Moderators remove promotion, people downvote anything that smells like an ad, and an unexpected private message usually gets ignored or reported. It's still easier to stand out on Reddit than on X or LinkedIn, but only once you've learned how each community talks.

## What you need

1. What you sell, and who it's for.
2. The post you want to respond to, and the subreddit it's in.
3. Your real experience with the problem. This skill never makes experience up.

## Steps

1. **Learn the room.** Read the subreddit's rules and a week of its top posts before you comment. Notice the tone, what gets upvoted and what gets removed.

2. **Answer the question they asked.** Write the reply you'd want if you'd posted it: specific, honest, drawn from what you've actually done. It should help everyone reading the thread, not just the person who posted.

3. **Leave your product out.** Your profile can say what you build. People who find your answer useful will look.

4. **Keep showing up.** One good comment is luck. A month of good comments in the same community makes you someone people recognise.

5. **Message privately only when invited.** If someone replies asking for more, or the post asks people to get in touch, a short private message is fine. Keep helping first. Mention what you build only if it's directly relevant, once.

## Output

```
Community rules on promotion: <summary>
Reply:
<text>
Message privately? <yes, because... / no, because...>
```

## Good and bad

Good: "had this with my last app. what changed things was answering questions in the two subreddits where people complained about the exact problem, for a couple of weeks, before mentioning the app once. happy to share what I searched for if it helps."

Bad: "We built a tool that solves this! DM me."

## Rules

- Never open with a private message.
- Never invent experience, pretend to be a customer, or upvote yourself from other accounts.
- If a moderator or the person says no, stop.
- Treat every community as its own place with its own rules.

## With MyPip (coming)

MyPip reads Reddit and thousands of other communities for people who are ready to buy. When the MyPip MCP is live, this skill will be able to start from the Reddit posts MyPip found for you today.