FounderSeed-stage SaaS
Third candidate this month ghosted us after the final round. Hiring engineers in Bangalore right now is brutal.
A founder venting about hiring is our exact buyer, mid-problem. Worth a thoughtful reply.
A dead account, seen 14× more. Without spending a dollar.
Uplers' X account had been silent for over a year and a half. Starting fresh wasn't an option: the handle had history and credibility. So I brought it back.
14×quarterly impressions, 3.5K to 51K
$0ad spend, organic only
20replies a day to founders and investors talking about hiring
2founder features that started as conversations on X
01 — The problem
Posting into silence.
I'd built X accounts from scratch before, with organic and paid growth. Reviving one that had been dormant for 18 months was new. An account nobody follows can post every day and still reach nobody.
So posting couldn't be the strategy. It had to be the second step.
02 — The playbook
Go where the conversation already is.
- 20Replies a day, before anything elseTo founders who were hiring, investors discussing the hiring landscape, and founders talking about the problems they faced hiring.
- 3Posts a weekSteady, not loud, so new visitors from the replies found an account that was alive.
- ↗Communities over the timelineStartup and founder communities on X, where people ask each other real questions, got more traction than posting to the main feed.
Twenty replies a day means choosing well. Which of these would you reply to?
Illustrative posts, written to show the filter I used.
InvestorEarly-stage VC
Interesting shift: seed teams are hiring their first AI engineer before their second salesperson.
Investors talking about the hiring landscape pull founders into the thread. Joining it puts the brand in that room.
Meme account1.2M followers
Monday mornings be like 🫠
Big reach, wrong room. Nobody here is hiring engineers.
FounderPre-seed AI startup
We're hiring our first backend engineer. Looking for someone who's built 0 to 1 before.
A founder actively hiring. Reply with something useful, so the name is there when they need help.
Tech personalityViral AI hot take
AI will replace every software engineer by next year. Change my mind.
Thousands of replies already, and none of them from our buyers. A reply here disappears.
Job seekerFrontend developer
Open to frontend roles, 3 years of React experience. Referrals appreciated!
Talent matters to Uplers, but this account was built to reach the people who hire. Different conversation.
0 of 6 sortedMatch my filter on all six.
The filter: is someone who hires talking about hiring? If yes, join in. If not, keep scrolling, however big the account.
04 — The results
Six months later.
Quarterly impressions on X, organic only.
The account went from 3.5K to 51K impressions a quarter, a 14× increase, with no paid amplification.
The replies did more than build reach. Two of them turned into conversations with founders I later interviewed for Founder Features.
05 — What's next
From reach to revenue.
This quarter, the goal is to turn X from a brand channel into an organic channel that brings in leads. Work in progress, and I'll update this page with the results.