How Reddit actually works for makers

Reddit is made up of communities called subreddits (r/SideProject, r/webdev, r/gardening and so on). Each one is run by volunteer moderators, usually called mods, who write that community's rules and remove posts that break them. Reddit has some site-wide rules too, but most of what decides whether your post survives is local: what this particular community allows, and what its mods and members are tired of seeing.

People go to a subreddit to talk with others who share an interest. They didn't come to be sold to. So the same post can do well in one community and be removed within minutes in another. A post that reads like an advert (big claims, a link, "check it out!") usually gets removed or ignored. A post that reads like a person sharing something they made, with what they learned, honest numbers and a real question, often gets a warm reception, even in communities that are strict about promotion.

Votes decide what people see. Upvoted posts rise and become more visible; downvoted posts or comments sink out of sight. Early votes and comments matter most, which is why the first couple of hours after posting are so important (chapter 7).

The shift that makes Reddit work for you: you're not "marketing on Reddit". You're joining a conversation where you happen to have built something relevant. Do that consistently and the occasional post about your project is welcome rather than tolerated.

What this means in practice:

• Treat each community as its own place with its own rules. What's fine in one can get you removed in another.
• Expect to give before you take: helpful comments, answers and feedback on other people's projects.
• Write like a person, not a brand. Share the story and the numbers, and ask something you genuinely want to know.
• Links are often the problem, not the project. Many communities allow you to talk about what you built but limit links, or allow them only in certain threads or on certain days.

When I first launched UpstartRadar I was surprised to find several subs permitted me to post a link with very little karma on my Reddit account.

Other subs, such as r/buildinpublic, turned out to allow a link only about once a week, so most diary posts went up without one.

And while it might be tempting for all of us to drop our link wherever we can, I received zero traffic from the posts I made in the subs that allowed me to drop a link whenever I chose.

It was the once-a-week posts in the subs with stricter rules and requirements that received genuine traffic, which led to real people taking action and signing up on my site.

Better still, even the posts I made without any link at all led to people visiting my site and signing up, because the readers who were interested and wanted to know more were clicking through to my Reddit profile, where my link is allowed.