How can you grow your user base without ads

Question

In YC, their advice is to grow your user base without using ads. For B2C what sort of channel can you use to grow your user base?Reddit, Facebook groups, SEO. Anything else I might be missing? I have tried to grow my user on reddit and facebook group but it&rsquo;s kinda hard. Both of the channel does not really like self promotion.

legitster · Accepted Answer

Do you already have a user base? Aggressively pursue them and give promos for outreach/gift accounts/etc.I understand not wanting to rely on ads, but extremely targeted ads for the most important personas may still be a good idea. If your product solves a real problem for people, you should get in front of them.

vFunct · Answer

Anything traditional publicists do, like reach out to media with press releases.