How I got my first 10 beta users without paid ads

I had a working MVP and zero distribution plan. Posting on Twitter felt like shouting into a void, so I picked one subreddit where founders actually ask for tool recommendations—not launch posts, just threads where people describe a problem I solved. I wrote a short comment explaining what I built and why, linked the demo once, and answered every follow-up for three days. Eight people signed up from that thread. Two more came from DMs after I shared a Loom walkthrough when someone asked how a specific workflow worked. The lesson wasn't the channel—it was matching the post format to the community. I stopped writing launch announcements and started replying where the pain was already visible.