From SEO Specialist to Reddit Expert: The Accidental Journey That Built Our Agency
In the world of business, we’re often told to create a detailed five-year plan. We’re taught to map out every step, define a clear objective, and never deviate. But sometimes, the most significant opportunities aren’t in the plan at all. Sometimes, they’re the result of a happy accident, a random phone call, and a willingness to say “yes” to a challenge you never saw coming.
Our agency wasn’t born from a grand, pre-meditated business plan. In fact, it was never the original plan at all. It was an accidental discovery, born from a different discipline entirely. This is the story of how a background in SEO led to an unexpected pivot and the launch of a dedicated Reddit marketing agency.
The Foundation: A Career in SEO
My background was in Search Engine Optimization. I had built my career as an SEO specialist, first at a fantastic SaaS agency and later in a lead SEO role at another company. I was passionate about the work – understanding search intent, building authority, and driving organic growth. Reddit, for me, was just a place I visited personally; I had never once viewed it through the lens of a serious marketing channel.
After about a year in my lead role, I decided it was time for a change. I left the company and, on a bit of a whim, got back in touch with the founder of my first agency. I simply let him know I was available and looking for an interesting new project.
That simple “I’m available” message turned out to be a career-defining moment.
The Catalyst: An Unexpected Challenge
As luck would have it, my timing was perfect.
The founder’s response was not what I expected. He said, “You know what, we’re actually exploring Reddit. We’re getting a lot of client demand, but we don’t have an internal team or a vendor set up. If you could help with this, that would be amazing.”
I was intrigued. The challenge was completely outside of my comfort zone, but the demand was clearly real. His clients were asking for it, and the agency had no way to service them. This was a clear, untapped need. Despite my inexperience in marketing on the platform, I took the leap.
We started immediately. We began experimenting with a couple of his existing clients, meticulously building out processes from scratch. We hired a small, dedicated team and got to work. We weren’t just guessing; we were applying strategic principles to a new platform, learning, and iterating.
The results came quickly. We started seeing genuine success for the clients, which gave me the confidence that this wasn’t just a fluke. This could actually work.
The Incubation: Building a Service from the Ground Up
For the next eight to ten months, I worked with his agency, building this new Reddit marketing service internally. We refined our strategies, scaled our operations, and turned our initial experiments into a reliable, results-driven system.
But the more we succeeded, the more I realized something. This wasn’t just a small, add-on service. The demand was too strong, and the platform’s potential was too great. It deserved to be its own, focused entity. I realized I wanted to build a small, dedicated agency that did only this, and did it better than anyone else.
This led to one of the most nerve-wracking conversations of my career. I had to go to my CEO – the man who had guided me, given me this opportunity, and was my biggest advocate – and tell him I wanted to leave to start my own thing.
The Launch: Community Over Competition
I was honestly worried. I was about to tell my mentor that I wanted to step apart and, in a way, become his competition.
His response was simply amazing.
He said, “Community success is my success. I wish you all the best. I’ll give you all the referrals we get, and let me know whatever help you need.”
His kindness, motivation, and “community-first” mindset were the final push I needed. He didn’t see it as competition; he saw it as an ecosystem growing.
The very next week, we made our website live. Rankersfly was born.
That founder is still one of our greatest partners. He refers all the Reddit requests his agency gets directly to us, and we even handle their own internal marketing. It’s a partnership built on trust and a shared belief that a rising tide lifts all boats.
Our agency may have started by accident, but its success is built on a very deliberate foundation: seeing a need, taking a risk, proving the concept, and, most importantly, fostering relationships that champion community success over individual gain.
