If you're hunting first users for a SaaS in 2026, you've already heard the Reddit advice. Pick a few subreddits, monitor for keywords, jump into threads where someone's asking. Solid playbook, but every founder is doing it.
The unfair advantage right now is one tab over: TikTok. Not for posting. For listening.
The thing nobody told you about TikTok
TikTok went from teen dance app to a real intent platform somewhere around 2024. By 2026 it's a search engine for problems. People ask questions in captions. Creators review tools, complain about workflows, and tag their pain. Comment sections are full of "what do you use for X" threads. None of this gets indexed by Google. Almost none of it shows up in Reddit-only lead tools.
That's the opening.
If your SaaS solves a problem a creator can demo in 30 seconds — productivity tools, AI workflows, design tools, financial trackers, fitness logs, social media managers — your buyers are on TikTok talking about the problem right now.
What TikTok demand looks like
It doesn't look like a B2B sales call. It looks like:
- A creator filming "my biggest annoyance with [tool you compete with]"
- A captioned hook: "if you know an AI tool that fixes this, drop it"
- A duet/stitch of a competitor's launch with a list of missing features
- A "day in my life" video where the friction is on screen
- Comments under tutorials saying "but this still requires me to do X manually"
Every one of those is a lead. Often a louder one than a Reddit thread, because the person is performing the pain on camera.
Why most lead-gen tools miss this
Look at the lead-gen tools on Product Hunt. RedLeads, Linkeddit, Tydal, Redreach — all Reddit-first. Mentio and a few others added X. Almost none search TikTok captions and comments at scale. Two reasons:
- TikTok's API is restrictive and changes often. Building a stable search pipeline is a real engineering investment.
- Founders building lead-gen tools are themselves on Reddit and X, not TikTok. Founders ship for the platforms they live on.
The result: a wide-open lane.
How to actually find leads on TikTok
You can do this manually. Here's the process before I show you the shortcut.
1. Search problems, not products
The mistake everyone makes: typing your product name. Don't. Type the problem in the words your buyer would say.
Examples for an "AI resume builder":
- "my resume keeps getting ghosted"
- "ATS keeps rejecting me"
- "what's a good app to fix my CV"
- "tired of writing cover letters"
Each query surfaces different videos and different commenters.
2. Read the captions, not the titles
TikTok captions are the new SEO. Captions are where the explicit pain lives. Titles are clickbait. Captions are the search query.
3. Mine the comment sections
The video itself is just the entry point. The gold is under it. People say things like "I've been looking for an app like this" or "does anyone know a better one." That's a buyer telling you their wallet's open.
4. DM the commenters, not the creators
Creators are besieged. Their DMs are noise. The commenter under their video — the one who left "I need this" — is reachable, and grateful that someone replied.
5. Score for urgency
Same rule as Reddit: filter for posts and comments where the person names a constraint (failed alternative, time pressure, budget). Skip generic discussion. The phrase "I just spent two hours doing X" is worth ten "interesting" comments.
The shortcut
Manual works but it's a few hours of scrolling per idea. The reason I built Gorilla is that I was doing this manually for two startups in parallel and burning out.
You paste your idea. Gorilla expands it into 20+ phrasings, hits Reddit, X, YouTube and TikTok in parallel, and ranks every match by buying intent using an LLM. The TikTok results are the part most founders are surprised by — they expected Reddit to dominate, and TikTok had a higher hit rate.
Two things to avoid on TikTok
Don't post first. Founders new to TikTok think they need a creator strategy before they can use it. You don't. You're listening, not broadcasting. Different game.
Don't auto-comment. TikTok's spam detection is aggressive. The platform shadowbans accounts that comment with the same template across many videos. Reply manually, write each one to fit the conversation, and you're fine.
What to write when you find one
Every reply to a TikTok commenter or DM should pass three tests:
- Does it acknowledge what they said specifically? (Not "hey, saw your comment.")
- Does it offer something useful in the first sentence, not a pitch?
- Does it leave them in control? ("If you want to try, here's the link. If not, no worries.")
A good template:
Saw your comment under [creator]'s video about [specific pain]. I built a thing for exactly that — [one-line product summary]. It's [free / cheap], no signup wall. If you want to try it, [link]. Either way, hope you find something that works.
That converts. Pitch decks don't.
The 2026 wedge
Reddit lead-gen is an arms race now. There are at least seven funded tools competing for the same Reddit threads. TikTok is wide open for the next 12-18 months — until either TikTok's API closes further or someone funded notices the gap.
Use the window. The cost of running Gorilla on your idea is $1.99. If TikTok comments are loud about your problem, you'll know in under two minutes. If they're not, you've spent a buck and learned something.
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