Dear Reddit: I'm sorry...

But you made me a millionaire ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ Hey friends, Pat here, founder of Starter Story. Today marks 6 years since I decided to start building on the internet. To celebrate, I wanted to share a story with you about my first big win while building online. I hope this resonates with you and inspires you to build. — Dear Reddit, I'm sorry for stealing your users. But you made me a millionaire. This is the story of how I stole millions of users from one subreddit, in plain sight. -- It all starts in 2017. It's launch day for my new website starterstory.com - a list of stories about how regular people started million-dollar businesses. I share it with friends. I'm ready for the SUCCESS to start rolling in. -- Crickets. A whopping 300 people visit my website in the first month... I learn startup lesson #428: "If you build it, they WON'T come." -- Ok... time to figure out this thing called "marketing". Let's try the shotgun approach. I share my website EVERYWHERE: Twitter, Instagram, FB, Pinterest, Quora, Imgur, Hacker News, etc. Again I'm just waiting for the SUCCESS to start rolling in… -- CRICKETS. So I start searching Google for more ideas. I come across a discussion on Reddit. And then it hits me. Could I get starterstory.com on the front page of Reddit? -- I check to see if there is a subreddit for entrepreneurship. There is. r/entrepreneur A subreddit with 2.3M users. What if I posted the link to my website on there? Let's give it a shot. -- NOPE. "Your post has been removed. Goes against our spam rules" Let's check out these so-called "rules": "#1: No link posts. Only self-posts (text posts) allowed." I have an idea. What if I copy & paste my content into a self post? Let's try it. -- I wake up the next morning: Holy sh*t. [My post]( is on the front page of Reddit. 400+ upvotes. Over 50K views. Hundreds of people on my website. But this is way bigger than one post. I think I've found a home run user acquisition channel. Time to double down. I rinse and repeat hundreds of times: After 2 years & 100s of posts later, I've got: - Tens of millions of impressions on my content - Over 1M visitors to my website - starterstory.com hits $10k/month But - don't copy this tactic. What worked in 2018 prob won't work today. Instead, I share this story to help you find YOUR home run: - Try many channels and formats (be scrappy) - Find one that works (you'll know when) - Go all in - And finally... know when to move on Eventually, a [Reddit mob]( formed and turned against me. But at that point, I was already onto my next move. I was pivoting to SEO. Where I'd found a way to get 10s of millions of users from Google: This is your sign to keep going. To help you do that, I'm offering 25% off both lifetime plans to Starter Story (today only). Unlimited access to 4,000+ case studies, deep dives, community, and more. [Join Starter Story Today]( Best, Pat Walls Founder, StarterStory.com [Twitter]( [Facebook]( [Instagram]( Starter Story - PO Box 3003 Jackson, WY 83001 Click [here]( if you want to stop receiving emails from us.