author: Trevor Lane title: User Research On Reddit date: 11/24/2021 image: https://i.imgur.com/ZBqmTXz.png authorImage: https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/15148900 tags: reddit, validation, ideas, entrepreneurship
Anyone familiar with reddit knows how awesome some subreddits can be. A good subreddit often contains a helpful community with deep knowledge centered around a specific topic. This is why using subreddits can be useful for validating ideas.
Use https://dmarx.github.io/reddit-map/ to find sub-reddits centered on or around the idea you are trying to validate. For example, searching for "gardening" leads to
Use https://search.pushshift.io/reddit/ to search for phrases within subreddits. For example, searching for "having this problem" lead me to this post from 8 years ago.
You can then use search results from past key phrase searches to improve future searches. You'll likely find new language, terms, and problems that you can search for to further drill down into the issue.
For example, after searching for more issues related to Crows, I found that only two solutions work consistently:
- kill the crow (Ouch :/ )
- Use an automatic sprinkler to spray water at the crows.
Finally, after using the steps above to inform your validation, you can post within the subreddit using phrases like "Does anybody else have problem X". Using the information that you found earlier in your searches lends credibility to you as a member of the subreddit and you're more likely to get better responses this way.
For example, instead of writing "Does any body have a problem with crows in their garden?" and leaving it at that, you can write "Does anybody have a problem with crows in their garden? I know some gardeners have mentioned killing them, but I would like to avoid this if possible. I've also tried using water to spray the crows but this doesnt seem to work very well."
The second line is much more likely to extract deeper knowledge from the community.
On each subreddit, filter posts by "Top", then by "All Time". Typically, the top 25 posts in aggregate will give you some useful knowledge. Filtering by the all-time top posts gives you a good sense of what the community as a whole finds valuable.
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