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Real experiments · Real numbers · Sourced

See how founders actually get customers.

Real marketing experiments from founders building real businesses — what they tried, what it cost, and what happened. Including what didn't work.

Explore 27 experiments Share your experiment

Latest results

Editor's picks

Featured experiments

RedditDidn't work
0
paying users
2
posts auto-removed
10
days

Reddit was his main channel. Ten days in: shadow-removed, then banned — and 0 paying users

Koran Thorne · Helios

Koran Thorne set out to get 50 users in 25 days with Reddit as the main channel. He built karma for two weeks, then his first posts were removed by Reddit's spam filter, his comments became invisible to everyone but him for nearly a week, and the account was banned sitewide. Day 10: 0 paying users.

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X (Twitter)
1
buildfast sales
$360
revenue, month 1
$760
revenue, month 2

Banned from Reddit 6 times, he built a tool for it — and sold it on X: $360 in month one

Arthur Yuzbashev · MediaFast

Arthur Yuzbashev's first two products died on Reddit: six bans, one BuildFast sale. He tracked what had triggered each ban, turned that into MediaFast — a tool for marketing on Reddit without getting banned — and sold it by sharing the story on X. Month one: $360; by January 2026: $5,400.

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Browse

Experiments by channel

Reddit

4 experiments

X (Twitter)

4 experiments

Short-form video

3 experiments

Product Hunt

3 experiments

Meta Ads

3 experiments

Partnerships

2 experiments

Sponsorships & paid placements

2 experiments

Communities

1 experiment

SEO

1 experiment

YouTube

1 experiment

Just published

Latest experiments

Product Hunt
$300
MRR before relaunch
$10K
MRR two months after
$60K
MRR, June 2025

Same product, new name: a Product Hunt relaunch took Outrank from $300 to $10,000+ MRR

Tibo · Outrank

Tibo's SEO tool launched on Product Hunt as ContentPie, placed #8 and stalled at $300 MRR. Renamed Outrank and repositioned as an autonomous SEO machine, it relaunched to #1 Product of the Day and passed $10,000 MRR within two months.

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Sponsorships & paid placements
50
extra trials above baseline
$12K
spent
2
days

Tibo paid $12,000 for one homepage slot. It brought 50+ extra trials in two days

Tibo · Outrank

Tibo bought the #1 spot on outbid.lol — a viral site where the highest bidder gets the homepage — for Outrank, then measured new trials against the same days over the previous 8 weeks: 50+ trials above baseline in two days.

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Product HuntDidn't work
0
paying members
$0
revenue
15
days

15 days after launching to zero audience: $0, 3 upvotes, 0 stars

Taiko_TOEDA · AI-automation safety audit membership

Launching a $9/month membership with no list and no following, Taiko_TOEDA published the day-15 numbers: $0 revenue, 3 Product Hunt upvotes, 0 stars across 17 GitHub repos. The only thing that worked was a careful argument in someone else's replies.

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Cold DMDidn't work
0
users won
200
DMs sent
2
replies

200 cold DMs, 2 replies — and she became the customer

Sofia

Sofia DM'd 200 potential users. Two replied: one wasn't interested; the other pitched her his own SaaS — a better pitch than hers — and she became a paying user of it.

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YouTube
20
paid users in first 48 hours of the paywall
50K
youtube subscribers
11M
youtube views

VEED's founder recorded 40+ YouTube tutorials himself — then hired someone to post one a day

Sabba Keynejad · VEED

Sabba Keynejad grew VEED's first 1,000 paid users by recording 40+ YouTube tutorials himself and answering questions on Quora, Reddit and Facebook groups — until he was banned from Quora and most subreddits. YouTube stuck: VEED later hired someone to post a tutorial every day, and the channel passed 50K subscribers.

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Partnerships
$10K
MRR added
$23.2K
MRR at time of post
30
days

Rob Hallam's affiliate program added $10k MRR in 30 days

Rob Hallam

Rob Hallam rebuilt a standard referral program around affiliate tactics borrowed from larger brands. He says it added $10k MRR in 30 days; his MRR screenshot shows $23.2k, up 62% vs December.

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Just as useful

What didn't work

RedditDidn't work
0
paying users
2
posts auto-removed
10
days

Reddit was his main channel. Ten days in: shadow-removed, then banned — and 0 paying users

Koran Thorne · Helios

Koran Thorne set out to get 50 users in 25 days with Reddit as the main channel. He built karma for two weeks, then his first posts were removed by Reddit's spam filter, his comments became invisible to everyone but him for nearly a week, and the account was banned sitewide. Day 10: 0 paying users.

Read experiment Public source
Product HuntDidn't work
0
paying members
$0
revenue
15
days

15 days after launching to zero audience: $0, 3 upvotes, 0 stars

Taiko_TOEDA · AI-automation safety audit membership

Launching a $9/month membership with no list and no following, Taiko_TOEDA published the day-15 numbers: $0 revenue, 3 Product Hunt upvotes, 0 stars across 17 GitHub repos. The only thing that worked was a careful argument in someone else's replies.

Read experiment Public source
Cold DMDidn't work
0
users won
200
DMs sent
2
replies

200 cold DMs, 2 replies — and she became the customer

Sofia

Sofia DM'd 200 potential users. Two replied: one wasn't interested; the other pitched her his own SaaS — a better pitch than hers — and she became a paying user of it.

Read experiment Public source

The people behind the numbers

Founder stories

Jack Friks

Solo founder of Postbridge

5 marketing experiments

Short-form video · X (Twitter)

Marc Lou

Indie hacker

3 marketing experiments

Cold email · Meta Ads

Tibo

Serial founder (Outrank, Revid, SuperX)

2 marketing experiments

Product Hunt · Sponsorships & paid placements

Nevo David

Founder of Postiz

2 marketing experiments

Partnerships · Reddit

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