Broad startup community spanning fundraising, hiring, and product.
r/startups is one of the largest startup communities on Reddit. It covers the full startup lifecycle — idea validation, fundraising, hiring, go-to-market — and enforces a strict no-promotion culture outside its dedicated threads.
First-time and repeat founders, plus aspiring founders and early employees, across every industry rather than software only.
~1.8M members — a large community. Use it as a general-tier sub: high reach, filter hard for intent.
Best treated as a general-tier sub: high reach, lower hit rate. The strongest leads come from specific operational questions ('how are you handling X') rather than the broad idea threads. Its 'Share Your Startup' weekly thread is a sanctioned place to appear.
Buying signals to watch forStrict. Unsolicited self-promotion is removed fast. Contribute answers; keep product mentions to sanctioned threads or genuine, asked-for recommendations.
The 9 rules r/startups moderators enforce, summarised from the subreddit’s official rules page (June 2026). Read them before you post or reply — rules change, so confirm the current rules on Reddit.
We are a community of discussion based around startups, not traditional businesses. All content must be relevant to startups. You are welcome to ask how to apply startup methodologies to your traditional business if you frame your question in a non-promotional way. We want you to be able to ask any question that helps your startup.
No direct sales, advertisements, or promotional posts of any kind. We have designated places that are an exception to this rule and they will always be stickied at the top of /r/startups. * You MAY share your startup in the Monthly Share Your Startup thread Self-promotion is anything you have an interest, stake or relationship with including being friends with someone at the company. At the end of the day, /r/startups moderators have the final say if your comments are promotional or not.
Submissions are for discussing methodologies, experiences, strategies, techniques, markets, and other such things WITHOUT tying them directly to your own project using its name or URL. Titles must be clear and descriptive. Submissions must have at least 250 characters of content. The more details you provide us the better support our community can provide you with. Like life, the more you put into something the more you get out of it. No legal questions. Use our Legal Office Hours.
All Feedback Requests (including surveys/polls) belong in our [Feedback Thread or other appropriate weekly thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/startups/comments/boq669/your_weekly_threads_guide_learn_about_the_new/). You are invited to repost each week. Be sure to contribute to the others in the thread and ask them to return the favor to increase engagement. You may not publicly offer feedback or direct support outside of the Stickied Threads.
Sometimes you think the best solution is simply to link to a resource that might answer someone's question. We want you to be able to link in discussion to relevant content. We also don't want the discussion to turn into a self promotional mess and link farm. If you are going to link to something in the comments please make sure to: * Write at least a sentence explaining why the link is relevant to the discussion. * Link only content you have no affiliation with. Affiliate links = banned.
The purpose of making a submission or comment is to engage in a public discussion with the community. It is not to request a PM/DM from someone. Do not post a notice that you DMed someone. You are more than welcome to engage privately with one another, but it is up to you to take the initiative directly.
Sharing your blog is not a means to self promote. A link to the original blog post is allowed with prior Mod approval. If you are submitting your own blog content, the full body of the content must be included in the post, properly formatted for reddit. Include an outline & timestamps with a video. If your blog is over 2000 words you may ask for an exemption. All other rules still apply. No blogs about your "startup" journey allowed.
The goal of this community is to encourage people to learn and be inspired to pursue ventures related to startups. Do not troll, harass people, or be an asshole. This does not mean to lie. It means to give support and explain why you don't like something. Try to remember people likely do not have much experience yet or might be simply ignorant to what you know. Be willing to hold a discussion and try to explain your opinion or point of view to the benefit of the entire community.
We do not allow unscheduled AMAs. We need to verify and approve all AMAs. If you wish to do an AMA you must use the "Message the Moderators" feature in the side bar and you must give us at least TWO (2) Weeks Lead Time to organize it with you.
LeadsRadar scans r/startups and the other subs you pick, scores every thread against your ICP, and writes 5 reply drafts per lead. 20 leads free, no card.
Try 20 leads free