How a 21-Year-Old Built a $6K/Mo SaaS After Getting Banned From Reddit 6 Times

TL;DR: After getting banned on Reddit six times, 21-year-old solo founder Arthur Yuzbashev built MediaFa.st to solve his own SaaS distribution pain. Today, his B2B marketing tool helps indie hackers safely acquire organic traffic from Reddit, generating over $6,000 in monthly recurring revenue (MRR) without spending a dime on ads.

Hello! Who are you and what business did you start?

Hey there! I’m Arthur Yuzbashev. I am a 21-year-old computer engineering student. I was born in Azerbaijan, but I currently live in Barcelona, Spain. On the internet, my bio usually just says, "trying to make it."

Like many young founders, my early attempts at building a startup were a string of quiet failures. But today, I am the solo founder behind MediaFa.st (also known as MediaFast). It is a tool that helps founders, indie hackers, and agencies get organic traffic and sales from Reddit without getting banned.

Right now, MediaFast is making around $6,000 a month. To put that into perspective:

• Month 1: $360

• Month 2: $760

• Month 3: $1,200

• By December 2025: $5,000+

• January 2026: $5,400

• Today: ~$6,000/month

In total, MediaFast has brought in over $45,000. I also have a smaller B2B marketing tool for LinkedIn called Lifasst making around $114/month, and a secret 5th product I recently launched that is actually starting to outperform MediaFast!

My main goal is simple: solve the distribution problem for builders who know how to code but don't know how to market.

What is your backstory and how did you come up with the idea for MediaFast?

Before I built MediaFast, I tried to market my other failed projects on Reddit. I had zero marketing experience. I just knew how to write code.

Product 1: This was an online library tool I built just for fun. I spent months making the code perfect. When it was time to launch, I went on Reddit, posted a link, and got banned almost instantly. It got essentially zero traction.

Product 2 (BuildFast): This was a library of React and Next.js animations for developers. I actually tried to validate this one first! I found threads where people asked for this exact thing. But in the end, I only got 1 sale in 2 months. Why? Because every time I tried to market it on Reddit, I got banned again.

I was desperate. I even used my dad's email to make new accounts. I tried hiring helpers on Upwork. Nothing worked. In total, I got banned 6 times. Every single day felt like I was doing something wrong. I could build great software, but my distribution killed it.

Then, I had a realization. I stopped trying to promote my tools and just started watching. I tracked my bans in a massive Google Sheet. I tracked:

• Which subreddits I posted in.

• The exact timing of my posts.

• How much "karma" (Reddit points) I had.

• What types of posts the moderators allowed versus what they deleted.

Patterns started to emerge. Small, niche subreddits were much kinder than huge ones. Pacing my posts (taking rest days) prevented bans. Matching the tone of the community mattered more than anything else.

I took all this data and automated it into a tool to solve my own acute pain. That tool became MediaFast. The pattern was clear: your worst failures usually teach you what your best product should be.

Take us through the process of building the first version of MediaFast.

Because I am a developer, building the tool was the easy part. I built the first version in just 3 to 4 weeks. Originally, I called it "RedditFast."

My Tech Stack:

• Frontend & Framework: JavaScript/TypeScript, React, and Next.js. Next.js is amazing for SEO.

• Backend: Node.js.

• Hosting: Vercel (extremely fast and reliable).

• Analytics: Plausible (I use privacy-friendly analytics instead of Google Analytics to keep things simple).

Startup Costs:
My startup costs were practically zero. When you know how to code, your only real cost is your time, a domain name ($10), and basic server hosting. I did not raise any money. I did not hire an agency. It was 100% bootstrapped.

Also, a big point: MediaFast is not heavily dependent on expensive AI APIs. Many AI wrappers have terrible profit margins because they pay OpenAI for every click. I use AI for some writing tools, but the core value is data and strategy, which keeps my costs very low and my profit margins very high.

How the product actually works today:

• Daily Roadmap: You wake up, log in, and it tells you exactly what to do. "Post this story in r/SaaS at 2 PM. Comment on these 3 threads."

• Subreddit Picker: It hand-picks the best subreddits for your specific product based on rules and survival rates. (Hint: Avoid r/Entrepreneur for promos; the tool finds chill, niche subs instead).

• AI Post Generator: It writes Reddit-native content that actually sounds human, matching the tone of the specific subreddit.

• Analytics & Pacing: It tracks your visitors and tells you when to stop posting so you don't get banned.

How did you get your very first customer?

I didn't launch with a massive marketing budget. In fact, three days before I launched, I just started talking about it on X (Twitter).

• Day 1: "I’m building this tool because Reddit keeps banning me."

• Day 2: "I’m adding this feature."

• Day 3: "I launched."

I got my very first customer on Day 1. It was a friend I had met organically on X who lived in the USA. He saw my tweets, understood the exact pain I was solving, and bought it immediately. I was extremely happy. That first month, I made about $360 total.

The biggest early boost came from Mark Lou, a very popular indie hacker. He left a comment saying I had an "amazing headline" and a cool product.

I also went onto Indie Hackers and wrote a post detailing my painful story of getting banned 6 times. That post went trending. People loved the honesty. I wasn't pretending to be a genius; I was just a guy sharing a tool he built to stop failing.

Since launch, what has worked to attract and retain customers?

I have spent $0 on paid ads. I don't do cold emails. My entire growth system is built on organic channels. Here is exactly how I acquire customers for a B2B SaaS:

1. Dogfooding (Using my own tool on Reddit)
I use MediaFast to grow MediaFast. I use the tool to find the perfect subreddits to share my story in. Because I follow my tool's pacing rules, I don't get banned. My Reddit posts drive thousands of visitors to my website every month. When people see my Reddit posts succeeding, it acts as a live demo of the product.

2. Building in Public on X (Twitter)
I share everything on my X account (which now has around 7,000 followers). I share my revenue numbers, my struggles, roadmap updates, and customer wins. Radical transparency is a huge advantage. When you share your failures, people trust you. When you finally win, they want to buy from you.

3. Long-tail SEO Compounds (The "Small Keyword" Strategy)
SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is a massive part of my strategy. Most founders make the mistake of chasing huge, impossible keywords. My strategy is different: Thousands of small keywords beat chasing huge keywords. Instead of trying to rank for "marketing tool," I write content targeting long-tail keywords like "how to do Reddit marketing for SaaS without getting banned" or "best micro-SaaS marketing strategies." These keywords might only get 50 searches a month, but the people searching for them are desperate for a solution. Those low-volume, high-intent searches compound over time into a passive traffic machine.

4. Gamification and Leaderboards
I added a karma tracking leaderboard inside MediaFast. Users compete to see who can get the most upvotes using the tool. It turned my users into fans. They share their leaderboard spots on social media, which drives free word-of-mouth traffic.

How do you price the product and why?

Pricing is a powerful growth lever. When I first started, the price was very low to remove any friction. I just wanted users to validate the idea.

As the product got better, I raised the prices. Today, my pricing model has two main tiers:

• $49 / Month Subscription

• $199 Lifetime Deal (LTD)

Why the Lifetime Deal works: The $199 Lifetime Deal is by far the most popular. For a founder, paying $199 once feels much safer than adding another monthly subscription to their credit card. They know the product pays for itself if it helps them get just one or two paying customers from Reddit. For me, LTDs provide a fantastic upfront cash-flow boost that funds my daily life and server costs.

I also offer a strict refund policy: if the tool doesn't help you, I give your money back. This removes all the risk for the buyer.

Another big revenue driver came by accident. An early user asked if I could just do the posting for him. So, I created a subscription tier that acts almost like a ghost-writing service. Listen to your users; they will literally tell you what they want to pay for!

What is the biggest "Secret" or strategy you’ve learned that other founders miss?

If there is one massive secret I can share, it is this: GEO (Generative Engine Optimization).

Most founders are fighting for page 1 of Google. I realized that the future is LLMs (Large Language Models like ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity). When founders ask ChatGPT, "How do I grow my SaaS on Reddit?", I want ChatGPT to answer: "You should use MediaFast by Arthur Yuzbashev."

How do you do that? AI models train on high-trust websites like Reddit. By using my own tool to successfully post high-value stories on Reddit, I am feeding my brand name directly into the training data of these AI models.

When you get naturally mentioned in high-trust Reddit threads, LLMs scrape that data. Now, a huge percentage of my daily traffic comes directly from people typing questions into AI chat boxes. Don't just optimize for search engines; optimize for AI by building a massive "Cyber Footprint" across forums, X, and directory sites.

My second secret: The "50+ Comments" rule.
Don't just post links. I drop 50+ highly targeted, valuable comments on Reddit and LinkedIn every quarter. I answer questions deeply. Only at the very end of a massive "value bomb" comment do I mention my product. Contribution always beats pitching.

What were your biggest mistakes along the way?

My biggest mistake was wasting months building my first two products without validating the pain first. I built a cool React animation library because I thought it was neat. I didn't ask myself, "Is this a bleeding-neck pain for anyone?" The answer was no.

My second biggest mistake was treating communities like bulletin boards. Spamming links on Reddit got me banned 6 times. It ruined my reputation and wasted weeks of my time. You have to respect the culture of the platform you are marketing on.

What platforms or tools do you use to run your business?

I keep my stack very lean:

• Next.js & Vercel: For building and fast hosting.

• Plausible / DataFast: For simple, privacy-focused analytics.

• StartupSubmit: I used directory submission tools early on to build my domain ranking quickly so my SEO would take off.

• Stripe: For handling all payments and lifetime deals.

Advice for other entrepreneurs who want to get started or are just starting out?

I posted this recently, and it is the absolute truth: You need 1 winning idea, 1 solved problem, market the hell out of it, then scale. But the main rule is boring: just don't quit, dude.

Here is the breakdown of what actually matters:

1. Your worst failures teach the best products. Turn your rage and your pain into features. I built MediaFast because I was angry at Reddit.

2. Distribution is greater than the idea. I could always code, but failing on Reddit taught me that marketing is the real bottleneck. Learn distribution first.

3. Track everything obsessively. Use Google Sheets before you write a single line of code. Data beats guessing.

4. Build in public. Radical transparency compounds trust. Tell people how much money you make. Tell them when you lose a customer. They will respect the honesty.

If I had quit after my 6th Reddit ban, I would still be making zero dollars. Instead, I realized the ban was the business idea. Stop switching ideas every week. Find a real problem you personally have, build a solution, and never stop climbing.

Want to follow Arthur's journey?

• Website: MediaFa.st

• X (Twitter): @arthuryuzbashew