Week one is comments only
A new account that posts a product link on day one gets removed, and often shadowbanned. For seven days the only job is comments in the subreddits where your buyers already talk. Answer the question in the post. No link, no 'check my tool', no signature.
Pick three subs, not thirty. Read the rules and the top posts of the month before you type. If a sub wants a minimum comment karma, you do not negotiate with it. You earn the karma somewhere else first.
What you reply to
- Someone comparing two tools they already pay for.
- A founder describing a broken workflow in their own words.
- A recommendation thread that is still on the front page of the sub.
- A complaint about a competitor, where a useful answer beats a pitch.
Skip megathreads that are already 400 comments deep, meme posts, and anything where the mods have said self-promotion is a ban. Karmy scores threads for this kind of intent and sends the shortlist to Telegram with a draft you can edit.
The comment itself
Open with the answer, not your bio. One specific detail beats three adjectives. If you have a number from your own product, use it as a data point, not as an ad. Link only when someone asked for a link, or when the sub's rules say a link is allowed and you have the karma they ask for.
The first hour matters more than the wording. A good comment on a thread that is already buried does not get read. That is why the ping has to arrive while the post is still moving, not in a Monday digest.
After the comment
Watch for replies for a day. Answer them. Do not edit the comment ten times. If a mod removes it, read the removal reason once and do not repost it. If the profile stops appearing to logged-out visitors, stop posting and follow the shadowban checks before you warm another account.
When a comment brings visits, save the thread title and the sub. Those phrases are the ones to watch next week. That loop, not a content calendar, is the playbook.
Who this playbook is for
This is for a founder or a marketer with one product and no Reddit audience. You do not have a community manager, and you cannot spend the afternoon refreshing new posts. The goal of the first month is a handful of comments that a buyer could have written, in threads that are still on the front page of a small subreddit. It is not a content calendar, and it is not a launch.
If you already have a warmed account and a list of subs, start at the reply step. If the account is new, or it was used for something else, start at the warm-up and do not skip it because a launch date moved. The mods have seen the shortcut. AutoMod has a number for account age and comment karma, and it does not care about your deadline.
Step 1. Write the buyer's sentence
Open a blank note and write five sentences a buyer would type, not the sentence on your homepage. 'What do you use to stop two people replying to the same trial' is a buyer sentence. 'AI-powered Reddit growth platform' is not. Include the clumsy versions: the competitor's name, the spreadsheet they are embarrassed about, the job title of the person who feels the pain.
Those sentences are the search queries and the mission description you give Karmy. If you only watch your own brand name, you will find people who already know you and miss the people who are choosing. Brand mentions still matter. They are the second list, not the first.
Step 2. Pick three subs, then stop
Search each sentence with Reddit's own search, sorted by the past month. Write down the subreddit every time a real question appears. After an hour you will have a long list. Cross off anything that is mostly memes, job ads, or other founders announcing launches. Keep three.
A sub with forty thousand people and a tool question every morning beats a sub with two million people and one relevant post a month. Read the rules of the three you kept. If a rule says no links from accounts under a karma threshold, that number is now your warm-up target. Write it down. Do not negotiate with it in the comments.
Step 3. Warm the account for seven days
Days one to seven are comments only. No link, no 'I built', no signature with a domain. Four to six comments a day, only on posts from the last six hours, only in the three subs or in one adjacent sub where the same people talk. Answer the question in the title. If a comment is removed, read the reason once and change subs or change the habit. Do not repost it.
At the end of the week, check the profile while logged out. If the page is missing, stop. That is a shadowban, and posting faster will not lift it. If the profile is public and comment karma clears the strictest rule you wrote down, the account is allowed to be useful in public. It is still not allowed to paste a link into every reply.
Step 4. Only enter threads that are still alive
A good comment on a buried thread is invisible. The window is the first hour in a busy sub and the first few hours in a quiet one. Sort by new. Skip megathreads with hundreds of comments, meme posts, and anything the rules call self-promotion. Keep threads where someone is choosing: comparing two tools, describing a broken workflow, asking what people replaced.
Karmy scores that shape and sends the shortlist to Telegram with a draft. You can do the filter by hand for a week so you learn which pings to trust. After that, the hand version slips, because the thread you would have wanted has already fallen off by the time you open the tab.
Step 5. Reply in this order
First line: the answer to the question they asked. Second: the constraint that made the answer true, a team size or a budget or the thing that broke. Third: the option you would skip, and why. The product name is allowed on the last line only when they asked for a tool. If they asked how a process should work, a product mention gets downvoted and the process advice would have been saved.
One specific detail beats three adjectives. If you have a number from your own setup, use it as a data point. Do not edit the comment ten times after it is up. Stay for the replies that day. A comment that ignores its own thread looks like a drive-by, which is the pattern people report.
Step 6. Count visits, not upvotes
Look at referral traffic from reddit.com and the thread it came from. A comment with two upvotes and forty visits is the one to copy. A comment with eighty upvotes and three visits was entertainment. If a sub sends friendliness and no visits, it is the wrong room. Change a sub before you change the wording for the fourth time.
Save the thread title when a visit lands. Those phrases go back into the buyer's sentence list. That loop is the strategy. A weekly post you invented so the calendar would not have a hole is not.
Step 7. Add a second account only after the first one works
A second account from the same browser, posting the same link, is how a shadowban becomes a wider block. Earn the right to a second account by having one account that can comment without removals for two weeks. If you use a karmito, it follows the same cap: a handful of comments on days when a real thread exists, and silence when nothing scores. Silence is a correct outcome. A quota of posts per day is how accounts start to look automated, because they are.
What a month looks like
Week one is warm-up. Week two is ten comments with no link and a tally of visits. Week three keeps the subs that sent visits and drops the one that only sent upvotes. Week four is when a link is allowed, and only inside threads that asked for a tool, and only from the account that already has a normal history. If week two produced zero visits, do not hire more posting. Fix the subs or the sentences. More volume on the wrong room just creates more removals.
Karmy is the watch and the draft. One mission is enough for this test, at €9 a month after the ten free days. You do not need five products to learn whether the room is real.