If you are a builder, there is a good chance you already know this loop.
You build something exciting. You convince yourself one more feature will make it click. You tell yourself the product is not quite ready yet. Meanwhile, the real work — finding people with the problem, talking to them, learning how they describe it — keeps getting pushed to tomorrow.
That is usually not because you are lazy. It is because building feels good. It feels concrete. Outreach feels vague, manual, and awkward. So you stay where you are competent and comfortable: inside the product.
The problem is that early on, the bottleneck usually is not more product. It is contact with reality.
UserQuarry can help guide you in the right direction and save hours of manually searching the internet — but the principles below still apply.
The goal is not "getting replies"
A lot of people approach early outreach with the wrong goal. They think the job is to get responses, book calls, or pitch quickly.
That is not the first goal.
The first goal is to find people close to the pain, start real conversations, and gradually learn who actually cares enough to want help.
When you engage with people online, you are doing three things at once.
First, you are learning the market. You are training yourself to notice the difference between someone who merely agrees with an idea and someone who has lived the problem.
Second, you are building familiarity. A thoughtful public comment makes any later direct message feel more natural. You are no longer a stranger dropping into their inbox. You are someone who paid attention.
Third, you are creating surface area for the right people to notice you. A good public reply is not only for the person you are replying to. It also signals your worldview to everyone else reading the thread.
So when you engage, the goal is not to "convert" someone on the spot. The goal is to identify pain, earn the right to a deeper conversation, and sharpen your understanding of who your product is really for.
The mindset shift most builders need
Most technical founders think in questions like:
"Is this person a user?"
"Should I pitch them?"
"What do I say to get a reply?"
A better question is:
What evidence do I have that this person lives near the problem, and what is the smallest honest step I can take to learn more?
That smallest honest step might be a thoughtful public reply. It might be checking their profile. It might be one light follow-up question. It might be nothing yet.
This matters because very few people will ever say, "I wish a product like yours existed."
That almost never happens.
What they usually do is describe the problem sideways.
They mention a workaround. They complain about a recurring frustration. They explain away pain they have normalized. They ask a "small" question that hints at a much bigger struggle. They tell a story that reveals repeated friction.
The real skill is learning to recognize demand before it is phrased as demand.
How to tell who is worth engaging
Not every comment is equally useful. A helpful way to think about people is in levels.
At the weakest level, someone is simply validating the idea. They say the post resonates or that the problem sounds real. That is fine, but weak. It tells you the topic lands. It does not tell you the person has enough pain to matter.
A stronger level is lived pain. Someone describes a real experience, a workaround, a failed fix, or a specific frustration. Now you have evidence that the problem shows up in their life.
Stronger still is active struggle. They are dealing with it right now. They cannot quit. They are trying to launch while working full time. They are stuck in a recurring pattern.
The strongest signal is problem-solving behavior. They have already tried to solve it themselves. They built a spreadsheet, a process, a mini-tool, a habit, or a mental framework. They are already investing energy in the problem.
That is what you are looking for.
Your job is not just to "engage." Your job is to sort people into buckets: agreement, lived pain, active struggle, problem-solving behavior, real urgency.
What public engagement is actually for
Public engagement is useful because it is low pressure. You are not asking someone to jump on a call. You are just joining a conversation.
It also helps you test resonance. If someone replies warmly, elaborates, or asks you something back, that is signal. It means there may be room for a deeper conversation later.
And perhaps most importantly, public engagement helps you practice reading between the lines. That is a skill. It gets sharper over time.
But public comments are not the place to explain your entire startup or force a pitch. The best public replies do something much simpler. They show that you understood what the person was actually saying.
The three best kinds of replies
Most good public comments fall into one of three categories.
The first is a reflection. You pull out one specific thing they said and explain why it matters. This works well when someone has already made a thoughtful comment.
The second is an extension. You take what they said and connect it to a larger pattern you care about. This is especially useful when you want to reveal your worldview without pitching.
The third is a light question. This works best when someone has clearly shared lived experience and you genuinely want one more detail. The key is that the question should be easy to answer and rooted in their experience, not obviously customer research.
A lot of founders overuse questions because they are trying to maximize replies. That usually backfires. If every comment ends with a question, you stop sounding thoughtful and start sounding like a person extracting information.
Sometimes the best reply is just a strong reflection.
The easiest mistake: pitching too early
When founders finally start engaging, they often swing too hard in the other direction. They find someone close to the pain and immediately want to explain the product.
That is usually too early.
In the beginning, you are not trying to win the person over. You are trying to understand them better and let them understand how you think.
This is why "sideways" engagement works better than direct pitching.
Instead of saying, "I'm building a product for this," you might say something like:
"What you said about fixing the symptom is why I keep thinking people are often very good at solving around the real problem."
That kind of comment does two things at once. It adds to the conversation, and it subtly reveals the lens through which you see the problem. The right people may get curious. They may reply. They may check your profile. They may remember you.
That is much better than forcing your product into the thread.
A simple framework to use every time
When you find a person or comment that seems relevant, ask yourself four things.
What exactly are they revealing? Is it pain, confusion, constraint, a workaround, a recent change, a failed attempt?
How close are they to the problem you care about? Are they merely agreeing, or are they living it?
What is the smallest honest response you can make? A reflection, an extension, a light question, or no reply at all?
What would make them worth following up with later? A thoughtful reply? More detail? Evidence from their profile that they are a stronger fit than they first appeared?
This framework keeps you from doing too much too soon.
What a real workflow looks like
A healthy early-user workflow is not glamorous.
First, find people near the pain. Not just exact keyword matches. Look for stories, frustrations, constraints, workarounds, and moments where someone says, "I thought the issue was X, but maybe it is really Y."
Second, engage in public like a peer, not a salesperson. Add something useful. Show that you really read what they wrote.
Third, watch who leans in. Some people will ignore you. That is fine. Others will elaborate, reply warmly, or reveal more about their situation.
Fourth, research further. What are they building? What else have they posted? Do they complain about adjacent things? Do they match your actual target customer?
Fifth, only send a direct message when it feels earned. A good DM should feel like a continuation of the conversation, not a cold pitch.
That is how early user discovery becomes sustainable instead of soul-sucking.
The real skill you are building
You are not just learning outreach.
You are learning how to recognize demand before it is stated plainly.
That is a deeper skill than copywriting or cold messaging. It is pattern recognition. It is taste. It is judgment.
People rarely say, "I need your product."
They say things like:
"I keep dealing with this."
"I tried all the obvious fixes."
"I cannot just stop doing the thing."
"I thought the issue was something else."
"I am still doing this manually."
"I am exhausted, but I keep normalizing it."
That is where early users live.
What to optimize for instead of conversion
When you are just starting, your immediate goal should usually be one of four things.
Learn something. Be remembered. Earn a reply. Earn the right to a future DM.
That is enough.
If you make conversion the goal too early, you will force conversations before trust exists. You will also miss a lot of valuable signal because you will be too busy trying to sell.
A simple question to keep in your head is:
Am I trying to close this person, or am I trying to understand them?
Early on, understanding wins.
Builders especially need to hear this
If you are an engineer or indie hacker, there is a good chance you will naturally want a system. You will want a playbook, a scorecard, a process that makes this feel clean.
That instinct is not wrong. But do not let it flatten your humanity.
The whole point of talking to early users is to get closer to real people, not farther away from them.
So yes, build yourself a workflow. Keep notes. Look for patterns. Track who seems promising.
But when you engage, try to sound like someone who is genuinely interested in the problem, because that is what good early discovery actually is.
Not spam. Not performance. Not thinly disguised sales.
Just careful attention, applied consistently, until the shape of the market starts to come into focus.
That is the work.
And if you can learn to do that well, you will not just be better at finding users for this project. You will be better at building products for the rest of your life.
UserQuarry won't magically get you customers. But it can surface the places on the internet where people are already talking about your problem space — and help guide you toward meaningful connections that lead to learning, and later, to sales. Try it out.