How I write a well-received post on Reddit for my SaaS Boilerplate

The stats

I built a SaaS boilerplate and shared it on 8 subreddits. 5 of which failed (r/startup, r/startup_resources, r/thesidehustle, r/SideProject, r/roastmystartup) but I had very good response from 2 of the subreddits I posted on, with a combined:

• 26k views

• 100+ upvotes

As a result of these 2 posts, I earned (as of the writing of this blog post) 76 stars on my Github repo.

Here’s what I learned

Formating is important

This is the first time I post on Reddit sharing what I’ve built. It’s a bit awkward at first and I didn’t want to mess it up on the bigger subreddits like r/SaaS or r/Startups, so I picked a few small subreddits to post on at first.

My first mistake was a novice mistake. Reddit doesn’t have a preview before you submit your post. I wrote a lot of information that users probably don’t care about and I did a poor job in formatting.

I only noticed the formatting was off when I actually went to read my post but it was already too late.

Tip #1: Use short sentences, simple words, format by adding proper line break and spacing.

Which subreddit you post on matters

Because my boilerplate is meant (I thought) to help people build their startups faster and more affordably, so I thought it would be appropriate to share it on saas and startup-related subreddits.

I did and I had thousands of views on these subreddits but no one upvoted and no one commented.

Devastated, but I knew it isn’t time to give up yet.

I nervously posted on r/Django because my boilerplate was built with Django and left it overnight.

I woke up the next day with a lot of positive comments and earned 30 stars in one night!

So, I made another post on r/HTMX the next day and it also got many positive feedbacks!

Tip #2: Don’t give up if you failed at first, you might not have found the right audience yet.

Content matters

To be honest, I was desperate. I wanted my boilerplate to be successful and I want to make money.

My first post on r/startup, r/roastmystartup, r/startup_resouces, and r/SideProject reflected my mentality. The post was sales-y, pushy and desperate. It failed.

So, I made some changes before posting on r/Django by just earnestly sharing something I’ve built, sharing my journey as a self-taught developer and giving back to the community.

That worked.

Tip #3: Give something to the community, be genuine and authentic.

Timing

I paid attention to the timing of the last 2 posts on r/Django and r/HTMX, and purposefully posted at around 9am in the US.

I can’t tell you if that truly makes a difference but I was thinking a person would probably find a post written in the last 2 hours more interesting than one that was written 20 hours ago.

Also, learning from my own mistake, I didn’t post on r/HTMX the same day I did as r/Django.

Posting on different days gives me the chance to make adjustment and improve if I need to post it on another subreddit.

Tip #4: Timing probably matters but post on 1 subreddit a day and make improvement before posting on another. 

That’s it

Other than Reddit, I also posted my Django + HTMX Boilerplate on 8 other websites. This is how it went.

Thanks for reading. Hi, my name is George. 👋 I am an aspiring solopreneur. I built 4 apps in 2 months using my own boilerplate and I am sharing it with you on my Github repo.