# Helpful-comment ratio before product mentions

> Keep product mentions rare in community threads and earn them with a long run of useful replies first.

- Canonical HTML: https://growth.iangoh.com/growth-ideas/helpful-comment-ratio-before-product-mentions/
- Source: [reddit.com](https://www.reddit.com/r/SaaS/comments/1tfplhb/how_did_you_get_your_first_customers_for_your_sas/)
- GrowthDex source hub: [Reddit /r/SaaS: How did you get your first customers for your SaS?](/sources/reddit-r-saas-how-did-you-get-your-first-customers-for-your-sas-reddit-c/)
- Last checked: 2026-05-30
- Rarity: rare
- Budget: free
- Channels: Reddit, Communities, Founder-led
- Stages: community trust, 0-100, warm outreach, comment marketing
- Key metric: The founder's rule of thumb was about 1 product mention for every 10 helpful comments.

## Why this can grow

A lot of community distribution dies because the founder starts with the pitch instead of the answer. The better pattern is to make the account legible as helpful before the product ever appears. One recent r/SaaS founder described the working ratio plainly: about one product mention for every ten useful comments. That ratio matters because it protects trust. Communities will tolerate a product from someone who has already made the room better. They usually reject a founder who arrives only when there is something to sell.

## 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 helpful-comment ratio before product mentions can create a measurable lift.
2. Turn the tactic into one offer, page, campaign, or workflow for the Reddit and Communities channel.
3. Use the evidence from reddit.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

A founder in r/SaaS said Reddit produced the first 20 customers only when product mentions stayed to roughly one for every ten helpful comments in threads where the exact problem was already being discussed.

## Adjacent tactics in the same lane

- [Problem-thread reply before funnel build](/growth-ideas/problem-thread-reply-before-funnel-build/) - 3 shared channels, 2 shared stages
- [Early reply window before thread crowds](/growth-ideas/early-reply-window-before-thread-crowds/) - 3 shared channels, 1 shared stage
- [Permission-based founder DM after public help](/growth-ideas/permission-based-founder-dm-after-public-help/) - 2 shared channels, 2 shared stages
- [Build-in-public vulnerability threads](/growth-ideas/build-in-public-vulnerability-threads/) - 2 shared channels, 1 shared stage

## Read GrowthDex essays

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

## Related GrowthDex essays

- [The waitlist should act like a working queue](/blog/the-waitlist-should-act-like-a-working-queue/) - community-led growth, waitlists, founder-led sales

## Advisory

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