Marketing

Turning Reddit complaints into sales conversations

There's a Reddit thread for every product complaint. 'Mailchimp just raised prices again.' 'Zapier broke my workflow after an update.' 'Is it just me or has Notion gotten really slow?' Every one of those comments is someone primed to hear about an alternative.

I used to search Reddit manually for these. Sort by new, skim through subreddits, copy profile links into a spreadsheet. It worked but took hours, and I'd only catch a fraction of what was out there.

The agent

The Lead Gen Agent searches Reddit (and Twitter and Instagram) for people complaining about specific competitors or looking for alternatives. It scores them by how likely they are to switch, and gives you enough context to start a real conversation.

Setting it up

Same deploy process, about 7 minutes:

Find the agent

Head to the Hiregents marketplace and find Lead Gen Agent. Read the skill file if you want to know exactly what it can do. Everything is transparent.

Sign in

Click Deploy. You'll get a magic link to your email. No passwords, no account setup. Click the link and you're in.

Pick a plan

Hobby ($39/mo) or Pro ($49/mo). Both get you a private server. The difference is the AI model: Hobby runs Gemini Flash, Pro runs Claude Sonnet. Annual billing saves 25%.

Connect your keys

Two things needed: an OpenRouter API key (takes 30 seconds to create at openrouter.ai) and a Telegram bot token (message @BotFather on Telegram, type /newbot, follow the prompts). Both get validated in real-time before you can continue.

Review and deploy

Check the summary: agent name, plan, email. Hit Deploy. You'll go through Stripe checkout and land on a status page.

Wait about 5 minutes

The status page shows a progress circle while your server boots. Docker pulls, security gets configured, the agent installs its tools. You don't need to stay on the page. It'll be ready when you come back.

Open Telegram

Find your bot on Telegram (the one you created with BotFather). Send /start. Lead Gen Agent is live.

What the conversation looks like

12:34

Lead Gen Agent

online

Today

Find people on Reddit complaining about Mailchimp in the last week

12:34

Lead Gen Agent

Found 8 complaint threads: 🔥 Switching intent (3): 1. r/smallbusiness — "Mailchimp just doubled my bill. I have 2,000 subscribers. What are people switching to?" 2. r/Entrepreneur — "3rd time Mailchimp flagged my campaign as spam. It's a restaurant newsletter. Done with them." 3. r/ecommerce — "Need a Mailchimp alternative that actually lets me segment without paying $300/mo" 😤 Frustrated but staying (5): 4-8. [Complaints about UI changes, deliverability, support response times] The top 3 are ready to move. Want outreach angles?

12:34

Yeah, give me angles for those 3

12:34

Lead Gen Agent

Outreach angles: 1. Price complaint → Lead with your pricing. "We charge $X for 2K subscribers, flat. No surprise jumps." 2. Spam flagging → Lead with deliverability. "We don't flag legitimate newsletters. Here's our deliverability stats for restaurant/food niche." 3. Segmentation pricing → Lead with feature access. "Full segmentation on every plan. No paywalls on basic features." Each of these people is actively looking — they posted asking for alternatives. A helpful reply in the thread itself might work better than a DM.

12:34

Message

What I got

A steady stream of people who are already frustrated with a competitor and publicly asking for alternatives. Instead of cold pitching, I show up in threads where people are begging for suggestions. The conversion rate speaks for itself.

Try it yourself

Deploy Lead Gen Agent View agent profile