- Startup Spells 🪄
- Posts
- Reddit SaaS AMA Comment Growth Hack: How Base44 Supercharged Engagement (in 24 hours)
Reddit SaaS AMA Comment Growth Hack: How Base44 Supercharged Engagement (in 24 hours)
PLUS: Learn how you can make millions building apps
Reddit SaaS AMA Comment Growth Hack: How Base44 Supercharged Engagement (in 24 hours)
When Base44’s founder (later sold to Wix for ~$80M), Maor Shlomo, hosted an AMA on r/SaaS, he added a small twist that made a big difference.
He ran a two-track giveaway: the top 10 most-upvoted comments earned a 3-month Pro plan, and 10 random comments with exactly zero votes earned the same.

Base44's founder Reddit AMA Comment Growth Hack
He stayed active throughout, answered widely, published a winners list, and sent single-use codes via DM—tight loop, clear rules.
Why the 2-Track Giveaway Drives Comments
Here’s why this mechanic turns a routine AMA into an engagement engine:
Status + competition turns upvotes into a game.
Lurker-friendly odds from the zero-vote lottery lower social risk.
Algorithmic lift from more comments boosts feed placement and discovery.
Reciprocity from product giveaways nudges trial and sharing.
Low CAC, high intent because prizes are product time, not cash.
How to run it (copy-paste playbook)
Start by announcing a clear two-track prize and a 24-hour window, then spell out the rules in a single paragraph so expectations are set.
Stay in the thread and answer quickly; your replies seed mini-conversations that model tone and quality. This helps with AI SEO too.
When the window closes, post the winners publicly, then deliver single-use codes via DM to keep redemption clean and trackable.
Measure the full funnel—comments, unique visitors, trials started, and 90-day conversions—so you can compare this tactic to other channels.
A few tweaks turned a standard AMA into a self-propelling engagement loop and product trial engine. The best part about Reddit is you can do tons of AMAs on multiple subreddits and get the brand into AI SEO.
Top Tweets of the day
1/
StreetInterview.ai is all done by v0, including integrations like Supabase, Stripe, and Veo 3. I haven't even opened my code editor for this new project.
— Damon Chen (@damengchen)
5:32 AM • Sep 2, 2025
Pretty insane domain name. AI-generated street interviews is a format that is possible now. And it was implement with just v0 is mind-blowing.
2/
Lip Sync of Veo 3 and VEED Fabric 1 side by side;
we're 50x cheaper, and quality = better
Moore's law for AI is happening— sam (@SamuelBeek)
9:25 AM • Sep 2, 2025
Veed has a video lip-sync model that can generate upto 3 minutes of videos.
3/
Merchant of record has to be the easiest product to build right now.
1. Use stripe, white labelled
2. Tell everyone you handle all taxes (don’t)
3. Get acquired and walk awayLiterally 30 minutes of work.
— Ryan Badger (@ryanseanbadger)
4:16 AM • Sep 3, 2025
This seems to be the play. LemonSqueezy got acquired by Stripe and then it was killed. Polar is a new one.
I thought Stripe was an efficient company but the products it acquired (like LemonSqueezy & IndieHackers) both went downhill after acquisition.
Rabbit Holes
Learn how you can make millions building apps by AppMafia
Bootstrapping to €600k MRR and getting killed by Shopify. The story of Checkout X. by Ruslan Leteyski
Making freemium work by XO Capital
What’d ya think of today’s newsletter? Hit ‘reply’ and let me know.
Do me a favor and share it in your company's Slack #marketing channel.
First time? Subscribe.
Follow me on X.
Reply