# Adjacent-topic posts before product mention

> Write useful posts around the buyer’s adjacent questions before mentioning the product, so the founder becomes part of the problem space rather than a drive-by vendor.

- Canonical HTML: https://growth.iangoh.com/growth-ideas/adjacent-topic-posts-before-product-mention/
- Source: [quo.com](https://www.quo.com/blog/first-1000-customers/)
- GrowthDex source hub: [Quo (formerly OpenPhone): How we got our first 1,000 customers](/sources/quo-formerly-openphone-how-we-got-our-first-1-000-customers-quo-com/)
- Last checked: 2026-06-07T02:03:15Z
- Rarity: uncommon
- Budget: free
- Channels: Content, Reddit, Communities
- Stages: first customers, community trust, problem education, content distribution


## Why this can grow

Quo’s Reddit lesson was not just “post on Reddit.” The team looked at questions founders asked in forums and wrote posts answering related business-phone topics, including whether to use a personal number for business and whether a website even needs a phone number. Those adjacent posts build trust because they help the buyer think before asking for a purchase. The move is especially useful for products in dull or misunderstood categories. Teach the problem around the product and the eventual product mention feels earned.

## Ian's take

From scaling consumer platforms across MENA and Southeast Asia, my default is to distrust growth work that only looks good in a slide. I would treat this as earning the right to be in the room, not dropping a campaign into a room. In community-led growth, the first job is to notice what people already care about, then bring a useful proof, tool, teardown, or question that makes the conversation better. I would run it small enough to learn quickly, then only scale the parts that real users repeat, save, reply to, or buy from. For this tactic, I would watch one clear growth signal before putting more time or budget behind it.

## Action plan

1. Define one narrow startup segment where adjacent-topic posts before product mention can create a measurable lift.
2. Turn the tactic into one offer, page, campaign, or workflow for the Content and Reddit channel.
3. Use the evidence from quo.com to set the first version of the message, format, and audience.
4. Launch a small test for 7 to 14 days with one success metric: one measurable growth signal.
5. Review the result, keep the winning message, remove weak variants, and turn the learning into a repeatable growth playbook.

## Source-backed example

Quo says it wrote posts answering adjacent business-phone questions founders were already asking, from personal-number tradeoffs to whether a website needs a phone number.

## Adjacent tactics in the same lane

- [Reddit alerts join existing buying conversations](/growth-ideas/reddit-alerts-join-existing-buying-conversations/) - same source, 2 shared channels, 1 shared stage
- [Group-admin Q&A session before promotion](/growth-ideas/group-admin-qa-session-before-promotion/) - same source, 1 shared channel, 1 shared stage
- [Beta paywall as need filter](/growth-ideas/beta-paywall-as-need-filter/) - same source, 1 shared stage
- [Requested-feature update loop to beta users](/growth-ideas/requested-feature-update-loop-to-beta-users/) - same source, 1 shared stage

## Read GrowthDex essays

Browse the plain-English essay index at [GrowthDex Blog](/blog/).

## Related GrowthDex essays

- [The community thread should already contain the problem](/blog/the-community-thread-should-already-contain-the-problem/) - community-led growth, first customers, customer research

## Advisory

If you want help turning this into a working growth system, Ian Goh offers advisory at https://iangoh.com/advisory.