Why Reddit DMs are the most underrated growth channel right now (30% Reply Rate)

My background: I'm a 2x YC founder who's grown multiple products to 1M+ users. We're building popsy.ai - an AI tool that finds you leads on Reddit + generates DMs & comments for you to post.

Here's why I think Reddit DMs are the most underrated early growth channel right now

• Reason #1: I get ~30% reply rate on Reddit. That's an easy 10x to any other platform (more like 20x)

• Reason #2: I'll just say the reply rate again. Nothing else comes close.

• Reason #3: High intent prospects. People come to Reddit to find solutions to their problems. It used to be hard to find relevant posts but Popsy AI automates that.

• Reason #4: Perfect context. You can personalize the messages based on their post. Popsy automates that too.

• Reason #5: Direct feedback. You're talking to real users about real problems, getting insights you can't get elsewhere.

• Reason #6: That little red dot on Reddit chat is impossible to ignore. Unlike email buried in spam folders

• Reason #7: Zero competition in DMs. Most people don't even try it because of all the misconceptions I'll list below.

Misconceptions

• "You'll get banned for cold DMing" - Not true. I've sent thousands of DMs with zero issues. You get banned for promo comments, not DMs.

• "Reddit users hate promotional stuff" - Not true. 99.9% of my replies are extremely positive. It makes total sense since I only DM users that are expressing the exact problem we solve.

• "Reddit users don't buy stuff" - That one depends. It's true there's a lot of broke students on Reddit. But Popsy AI lets you filter for posts mentioning revenue, job titles, funding status etc.

• "It doesn't scale" - Partially true. While Popsy automates most of the manual work, the actual sending of DMs still has to be done with a copy paste. So you can't send 10,000 messages a day like email, but quality over quantity works better for early-stage anyway.

• "Reddit is too casual for B2B" - Not true. Decision-makers hang out on Reddit too - they just don't always announce their titles. Popsy can help you find them using other clues.