Quick start guide

What this guide covers

Best for:

New users

Time to value:

Under 10 minutes

Outcome:

First mention review

Key points

• Start with one product, one audience, and one use case.
• Use narrow subreddits before expanding into broad search.
• Review the first post for pain, timing, and reply fit.
• Turn one good match into a reusable campaign pattern.

Start with one narrow product angle

The fastest way to make Leadline useful is to avoid starting with every possible customer. Pick one product angle, one audience, and one reason that audience would care right now. A broad product description creates broad monitoring, and broad monitoring usually creates weak review queues.

For example, "project management software" is a category. "Async founders looking for lightweight sprint planning" is an angle. The second version gives Leadline clearer language to search for and gives you a better reason to reply when a post appears.

• Use the pain your customer would type, not only the category you sell.
• Keep the first setup narrow enough that a good match feels obvious.
• Avoid adding every feature, ICP, and competitor before the first review pass.

Choose one subreddit lane before going wide

A first monitoring lane should be easy to inspect manually. Start with one to three communities where your buyers already ask questions, share tools, or complain about the workflow you solve. You can always expand after you learn what a useful post looks like.

Broad communities can work, but they are harder to judge on day one. A focused subreddit gives you cleaner language, clearer norms, and fewer false positives while you tune the first campaign.

• Start with buyer communities before general startup or productivity communities.
• Check whether posts in the subreddit allow helpful product-adjacent replies.
• Save broader subreddits for the second pass after your signals are clearer.

Add keywords that match real buying language

Good keywords sound like a person trying to solve a problem. They include recommendation requests, alternative language, migration pain, budget questions, and practical constraints. Weak keywords are usually standalone nouns with no buying context.

If you sell a support tool, "support software" is less useful than "best help desk for small team", "Zendesk alternative", "too expensive support tool", or "how do you manage customer emails". The closer the phrase is to a real post, the easier the review step becomes.

• Mix product terms with pain phrases, alternative phrases, and use cases.
• Include competitor names only when you can reply with useful context.
• Remove phrases that create many posts you would never answer.

Review the first match like a human, not a filter

The first useful Leadline session is a review session. Open the post, read the title, skim the body, and ask whether a normal person would welcome a helpful reply. The goal is not to force every matched post into outreach.

A good first match usually has a clear problem, enough context to respond specifically, and an author who appears to be asking for help or feedback. If the post is just a broad opinion thread, it may still be useful for research, but it is weaker as a reply opportunity.

• Look for a question, active pain, comparison, budget constraint, or timeline.
• Skip posts where the only match is a loose keyword.
• Prefer replies that add context before mentioning your product.

Create a simple review rule

After the first few matches, write down a simple rule for what deserves action. This rule does not need to be complicated. It might be: save posts with a recommendation request, archive generic discussion, and queue replies only when the post has pain plus fit.

That rule makes the dashboard easier to use because every new lead has a path. You are not re-deciding the whole strategy for every post; you are applying a small operating system.

• Save posts that show fit but need more research.
• Queue replies only when the thread has context and timing.
• Archive weak matches quickly so the inbox stays usable.

Expand only after the first lane works

Once the first lane produces posts you would actually review, expand carefully. Add one adjacent subreddit, one competitor phrase, or one new pain cluster at a time. That makes it easier to see what improved the results and what created noise.

This is the part most teams rush. More sources do not help if the review queue becomes muddy. A clean narrow lane beats a noisy broad campaign, especially in the first week.

• Add one source at a time so you know what changed.
• Track which posts led to saved leads or queued replies.
• Cut noisy terms instead of trying to score around them forever.

Keep moving through the docs

Use this page as one step in the workflow, then jump to the guide or product page that matches what you need next.