r/EntrepreneurRideAlong: rules, karma requirements and posting culture
Founders documenting a business as they build it: numbers, mistakes, updates. Very busy, friendlier to named projects than most, and hard on new accounts.
Entrepreneur Ride Along · Open on Reddit
- Members
- 732k
- New posts a day
- 79.5
- Comments on a typical post
- 7
- New posts removed
- 76%
The short answer
r/EntrepreneurRideAlong removes posts from accounts that are too new or have too little karma, and it does not publish either number. The gate is strict: only about 1 in 5 posts in our sample stayed up. Posts are text only and every one carries a flair. If you get through, this is a room where you can name what you are building, as long as the post gives people something: real figures, a lesson, or a clear question.
Who posts here
Most posters are on a first or second business and say so. Terms like SaaS, MRR and SEO are used without explanation, but nobody is told off for a basic question, and replies run long, around 45 words, with practical next steps. A vague post without detail is not attacked. It just gets no replies.
- Solo founders and side-project builders, mostly in software, sharing progress and asking how to get users.
- People with a day job building a second income and reporting how it is going.
- Small agency owners and freelancers selling marketing, outreach or support services.
- Makers of physical products: food brands, card games, handmade goods.
- Writers who post case studies of well-known companies, and a few operators with real revenue who answer questions.
Karma and account requirements
What it takes to get a post through in r/EntrepreneurRideAlong.
| Karma | A minimum exists and the number is not published. AutoModerator tells you to build karma in other communities first, which suggests it counts karma from across Reddit.Mods' wording: “your account is either too new or does not have enough karma” |
|---|---|
| Account age | A minimum exists and the number is not published. The same AutoModerator message covers both.Mods' wording: “build up your karma and account age before posting here” |
| Post type | Text posts. Every post in the sample was text. |
| Post flair | Every post in the sample carries one. Seeking Advice, Ride Along Story and Idea Validation cover most of them. |
| Self-promotion | Allowed only when the post is useful in its own right. Blatant promotion is not.Mods' wording: “Share your work only if it genuinely benefits the community.” |
| Offers and newsletters | No free services, giveaways, affiliate links or newsletter sign-up links.Mods' wording: “Avoid unsolicited offers, free giveaways or affiliate links.” |
What AutoModerator says
The moderators' bot leaves these messages on posts. They are the closest thing to an official statement of the thresholds.
Your submission in /r/EntrepreneurRideAlong was automatically removed because your account is either too new or does not have enough karma. Please participate in other communities to build up your karma and account age before posting here. This is a measure to prevent spam and ensure genuine contributions. If you believe this removal was a mistake, please contact the moderators.
Your submission in /r/EntrepreneurRideAlong was automatically removed because it contained a URL or a markdown link. To keep our community focused and prevent spam, we do not allow URLs or links (including Reddit internal links) in posts at this time. Please remove the link and try submitting again. If you believe this removal was a mistake, please contact the moderators.
Your comment in /r/EntrepreneurRideAlong was automatically removed because it contained a URL or a markdown link. To keep our community focused and prevent spam, we do not allow URLs or links (including Reddit internal links) in comments at this time. If you believe this removal was a mistake, please contact the moderators.
What you can post
| Post type | Subreddit setting | Share of recent posts |
|---|---|---|
| Text | Allowed | 100% |
| Link | Not stated | 0% |
| Image | Not stated | 0% |
| Video | Not stated | 0% |
| Poll | Not stated | 0% |
Post flairs in use
- Seeking Advice 29%
- Ride Along Story 29%
- Idea Validation 18%
- Other 10%
- Resources & Tools 7%
- Collaboration Requests 7%
What happens to a new post
Where the most recent posts ended up. Sample size: 400.
- Stayed up20%
- Removed by Reddit's filters17%
- Removed by moderators59%
- Deleted by the author5%
Reddit counts a removal by the subreddit's own AutoModerator rules as a moderator removal, so that share is not all human. Held by AutoModerator means the post is waiting in the mod queue.
What happened when we posted here
We have posted here ourselves. This is how our own posts and comments fared.
- Stayed up
- 97%
- Removed by Reddit's filters
- 3%
- Removed by moderators
- 0%
- Period
- August 2025 to August 2026
The rules, in the mods' words
- 1
Be Respectful and Kind
No harassment, personal attacks, or hate speech. Keep the community welcoming.
- 2
No Outright Spam or Free Services
Avoid unsolicited offers, free giveaways or affiliate links. Stay on topic with thoughtful content.
- 3
Self-Promotion ONLY with Value
Read this: https://www.reddit.com/r/EntrepreneurRideAlong/comments/1c0p4as/the_self_promotion_rules_in_this_subreddit_have/ Share your work only if it genuinely benefits the community. No blatant promotion.
- 4
Follow Reddit’s Global Rules
Ensure you’re adhering to Reddit’s terms and conditions in all interactions.
- 5
Engage with Good Intent
Approach discussions with openness and a desire to help others succeed.
- 6
No Links to Newsletters
Don’t post links purely to grow subscriber lists.
- 7
No Offering Free Services
These are the rules as archived in January 2025. Rules change. Check the sidebar before you post.
The culture
r/EntrepreneurRideAlong is built on one idea: bring people along while you build. It has about 730,000 members and is very busy, close to 80 posts a day. The typical post is long for Reddit, around 185 words, and fewer than a third of titles are questions. People tell a story first and ask second.
Three kinds of post make up most of the feed: ride along stories with numbers, requests for advice, and idea validation. The ones that rise are specific and modest. A dull directory site that took a year to earn anything. A side income that finally matters. Three developers starting a chocolate brand with no experience. Month four of an app with 75 installs and one paying user.
The numbers on removal look brutal: about 59% of posts removed by moderators and another 17% by Reddit's filters. Every AutoModerator message in our data is the same account age and karma notice, and the removed titles look like the ones that stayed up, so most of that is likely the account gate catching new accounts, not a judgment on content. The argument that keeps coming back is about promotion itself: how someone with real expertise is supposed to contribute on Reddit when talking about their own work gets treated as an advert.
What lands
- A story with real figures and an unglamorous arc. The top post was about a boring directory site that sat near zero for a year before reaching five figures a month.
- An honest follow-up. Someone returning a year and a half after their first post to report a narrowed idea and a first real salary was well received.
- A case study of a known brand boiled down to lessons, written in the poster's own words.
- A sharp, personal dilemma, such as what you owe an employer who paid for the first version of a tool that became a product. That one drew over 240 comments.
- Scrappy offline tactics with a result, like hundreds of printed flyers launching a card game.
What gets removed or ignored
- Posts from accounts that are too new or too low on karma. This is the only removal reason AutoModerator states in our data.
- By the rules, offers of free services, giveaways, affiliate links and links meant to grow a newsletter list.
- By the rules, blatant promotion with nothing in it for the reader.
- The removed titles we can see are a mix of product launches, feedback requests and ordinary stories, including duplicates of posts that stayed up. Our data does not show a content pattern beyond the account gate.
The unwritten rules
- You can name your product. Many posts that stayed up do, some with a link. What matters is whether the post would be worth reading without it.
- Bring numbers, including the bad ones. Revenue, installs, signups, what you spent. Posts that admit small figures are trusted more.
- Replies often end with a line about the commenter's own tool. It is common here and tolerated, but comments in the sample carried almost no links, so keep it to a mention.
- A launch announcement with a feature list gets little. The median post gets seven comments and plain pitches sit well below that.
- Posting the same thing two or three times with different titles shows up clearly in the feed, and the copies tend to be removed.
Self-promotion
The rule is self-promotion only with value, and it points to a separate post explaining the moderators' position, which is not in our data. Free service offers, giveaways, affiliate links and newsletter links are banned separately. In practice this is one of the more permissive business subreddits once your account is past the gate: posts that name the poster's product, offer a service, or put a small business up for sale stayed up in our sample. They also got few replies. The posts that travel are the ones where the product is the setting and the lesson is the point.
How people write here
- Typical post length
- 185 words
- Typical title length
- 12 words
- Titles phrased as a question
- 29%
- Typical comment length
- 45 words
- Comments that include a link
- 0%
- Posts that carry a flair
- 100%
When people post
- 0:00 UTC, 5
- 1:00 UTC, 10
- 2:00 UTC, 9
- 3:00 UTC, 17
- 4:00 UTC, 5
- 5:00 UTC, 16
- 6:00 UTC, 17
- 7:00 UTC, 15
- 8:00 UTC, 19
- 9:00 UTC, 18
- 10:00 UTC, 14
- 11:00 UTC, 15
- 12:00 UTC, 23
- 13:00 UTC, 27
- 14:00 UTC, 23
- 15:00 UTC, 25
- 16:00 UTC, 19
- 17:00 UTC, 21
- 18:00 UTC, 13
- 19:00 UTC, 28
- 20:00 UTC, 23
- 21:00 UTC, 19
- 22:00 UTC, 13
- 23:00 UTC, 6
New posts by hour of day, UTC.
The regulars
The accounts that showed up most in our sample. Worth reading before you post: they set the tone, and they are usually the first to reply.
Most active posters
- u/Willing-Novel67083 posts
- u/Equivalent_Cap86493 posts
Most active commenters
- u/sumizeit7 comments
- u/lamortgagedude6 comments
- u/investigatormaker6 comments
- u/_johndoe47_5 comments
- u/Ornery-Associate41925 comments
Top keywords
The words and phrases that show up far more often here than in other communities, from recent posts in r/EntrepreneurRideAlong.
- founders 33 posts
- business 60 posts
- product 55 posts
- saas 29 posts
- businesses 27 posts
- focused next.js 5 posts
- launched 16 posts
- app 37 posts
- starters instead 4 posts
- next.js starters 4 posts
- brand 22 posts
- idea 31 posts
- launch 15 posts
- founder 15 posts
- website 24 posts
- agency 16 posts
- week-by-week 3 posts
- starter kits 3 posts
- paid leaderboard 3 posts
- launch kit 3 posts
- huge everything 3 posts
- everything starter 3 posts
- bidup 3 posts
- launching 9 posts
- customers 20 posts
- story 15 posts
- customer 21 posts
- growing 12 posts
- ads 15 posts
- next.js 7 posts
- revenue 13 posts
- spent 18 posts
- startups 9 posts
- focused 12 posts
- sales 20 posts
- strangers 6 posts
- next person 4 posts
- websites 12 posts
- trust 15 posts
- startup 12 posts
Posts that did well
- I built a boring directory that’s making $10k per month339 upvotes · 83 comments · Ride Along Story
- My 9-5 isn't my only income anymore180 upvotes · 66 comments · Ride Along Story
- Helping homeless Costa Ricans turned into $103.7M80 upvotes · 32 comments · Resources & Tools
- Quit my job 5 years ago and it was the BEST decision ever54 upvotes · 10 comments · Ride Along Story
- How does Whop handle payouts and KYC for platforms with multiple users?44 upvotes · 20 comments · Seeking Advice
- Founding a chocolate brand as 3 software developers with 0 experience42 upvotes · 19 comments · Ride Along Story
- How are industry experts supposed to contribute on Reddit if talking about their actual work is considered self promotion?39 upvotes · 52 comments · Seeking Advice
- I put up over 500 flyers in my town, and it actually resulted in the game I designed blowing up37 upvotes · 36 comments · Ride Along Story
Common questions
How much karma do you need to post in r/EntrepreneurRideAlong?
The number is not published. AutoModerator removes posts when the account is too new or does not have enough karma, and tells you to take part in other communities to build both up. That wording suggests karma from anywhere on Reddit counts. If you think the removal was a mistake, the message invites you to contact the moderators.
Can I promote my startup in r/EntrepreneurRideAlong?
Yes, within limits. The rule allows sharing your work when the post benefits the community and bans blatant promotion, free service offers, giveaways, affiliate links and newsletter links. Posts that name a product stay up when they are built around real numbers, a lesson or a specific question.
Why was my r/EntrepreneurRideAlong post removed?
Most likely your account is too new or too low on karma. That is the only removal notice AutoModerator sends in our data, and about three quarters of posts in the sample were removed by moderators or by Reddit's filters. Build karma elsewhere, wait, and try again, or message the moderators if you believe it was an error.
What should a ride along post include?
What you are building, how long you have been at it, real figures, what worked and what did not, and what you are doing next. Posts run long here, around 185 words, and the ones that do best read as an honest progress report with a lesson in it.
Data as of October 4, 2026. Numbers come from public Reddit data (the Arctic Shift archive and GummySearch) sampled on this date. Removal share counts posts taken down by moderators, AutoModerator or Reddit's own filters. Banner and icon belong to the community. Moderators change rules without notice, so treat the sidebar as the final word.
