When I first started my business, I made a classic, expensive mistake: running $100 ad trials across LinkedIn, Instagram, and TikTok without a clear offer or growth goal.
The result? No growth whatsoever. Lol, it’s okay, we can all laugh now.
Having learned a lot from that experience, I finally fixed my offers and looked for alternatives to market myself: How do I grow organically? Is it even possible to grow with 0 budget on marketing?
The short answer: YES. But the way organic growth works has apparently shifted.
Meet Derk Steemers: Organic & Community Growth Strategist
Upon pondering the question, by chance I met Derk Steemers on LinkedIn. I decided to sit down with him to understand how organic reach actually works today.
Derk is the founder of the Munich-based consultancy, In Good Company.
He’s been obsessed with organic distribution since he was 14, selling sponsor slots on his skateboard and burning skate edits onto DVD before YouTube existed. With over 12 years in marketing, he helps clients build real reach through community first, not ads!
Which brings us to our main topic: How do buyers actually discover us today?
Marketing Has Two Audiences Now: Humans and AI
For over a decade, organic growth meant traditional SEO. Companies fought to rank #1 on Google's search results pages so buyer would click their specific link.
But in 2026, buyers -myself included- are not skimming through five different blog posts anymore. We ask AI tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity specific, detailed questions about our exact pain points and use cases.
The AI then synthesizes information gathered across the open web into a single tailored recommendation.
You are not only talking to your buyer, but also to its AI:
The human: makes decisions
The AI: recommends you
SEO vs. GEO: What’s the difference?
Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) structures your brands’ digital footprint so AI engines can recognize, trust, and mention your business when buyers asks questions.
So, how do we do execute GEO when we’re running a business by ourselves, with zero ad budget?
Here are some steps you can try out!
3 Steps to start Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) on a $0 budget
Step 1: Show up in organic communities (Reddit & Forums)
AI models favor authentic human experience over polished corporate marketing copy. According to research, 40% of sources cited by AI engines come from community platforms like Reddit.
Derk calls this “the revenge of community managers” 😂
Case example: When Derk worked with Arcware (a 3D pixel-streaming platform), standard LinkedIn posts weren’t reaching their hyper-niche engineer audience. So instead of forcing that or running ads, he launched a dedicated subreddit and joined technical forums -which worked really well with the type of audience he’s targeting.
By giving engineers a place to solve niche technical problems together, they reached over 8,000 targeted prospects with literally $0 in ad spend.
And because AI models constantly crawl these discussions, active community presence will naturally feed your long-term AI discoverability.
Step 2: Build your personal brand on LinkedIn
LinkedIn is currently the fourth most-cited source by AI answer engines.
So if you’re a solopreneur or founder -like Derk and I- relying on organic growth, posting, and commenting on LinkedIn will help!
BUT it will have to be beyond ego, likes, and impressions. Think of it as you creating an indexable proof that you’re the expert in what you do.
When you share authentic insights and engage thoughtfully on LinkedIn:
You build trust with the human buyers, in real time.
And you create a persistent open-web text that AI engines crawl on, in the long run.
Step 3: Optimize your website FAQ for conversational AI queries
Apart from community chatter, AI also looks for direct and structured answers to specific user prompts.
So what I tried to do myself is to be more strategic with my website’s (copy and) FAQ. I used Answer the Public to search the exact queries potential clients type into search tools regarding B2B marketing consultants and personal branding. Then I wrote direct answers into my site’s FAQ.
This felt intimidating for a non-tech person like me. But apparently it was easier than I thought! There’s no complex coding needed. Just tweak the FAQ copy to answer real questions and make it drastically easier for AI engines to summarize your business accurately.
Time: The universal challenge for bootstrapped founders
While setting up your GEO costs $0 in capital, it does cost time. And for solo operators or bootstrapped founders like you, me, and Derk, time is our rarest asset.
During our chat, Derk shared a lesson from his recent transition into fatherhood that reframed how he manages his schedule:
"Every 15 minutes I slack off, or waste on unproductive tasks at work, is 15 extra minutes my wife has to manage things alone. That realization forces ruthless clarity."
He started evaluating tasks by asking himself: Does this deliver real, measurable value to the client, or does it just make me feel productive?
If a to-do list existed to satisfy the need to be perfect, it goes bye-bye. As a healing perfectionist and a mother-to-be, I needed to hear this today.
Lean organic growth plan for busy solopreneurs
So! That being said. If you are a solo operator (solopreneur), bootstrapped founder, or managing lean teams, this segment is for you.
If you have under 20 hours a week for marketing and a limited ad spend budget, here is the lean plan for growth that Derk recommends for the next 3-6 months of growth:
Social and community building: Focus on 1-2 platforms where your ideal clients hang out. Example: Build human trust on LinkedIn or answer specific technical questions on Reddit to feed AI search crawlers.
Interactive webinars: Depending on your product and services, Derk also suggested a focused webinar. Especially for niche services or B2B offers, a 1-hour live webinar lets you show how you work, run live demos, and ultimately engage authentically -better than cold outreach would.
Talking about webinars…
Derk has a webinar on 16th September about Google Search Ads. I highly recommend joining it if you’re a business owner (consultant, coach, or anyone with or without a marketing background). Not only that, Derk is not stingy with his knowledge, but he also presents it in a very interactive and easy-to-understand way!
Owned Email Nurture: Transition everyone who attends your webinars or engages in your community onto an email list you own. Algorithms change, social reach gets throttled, but an email list remains a permanent asset that lets you nurture leads over time!
Final key takeaway
Sustainable growth in 2026 is not about doing more. Cutting down and prioritizing efforts that matter will bring us further than piling more tasks on your to-do list.
So, learning from Derk, before you and I launch our next marketing task, let’s ask ourselves: Is this moving the needle for my business, or am I just doing busywork?
Cut the noise, focus on authentic human connections and AI discoverability, and build a growth engine that respects your time.
To more growth for you and me 💙
Annisa
"The revenge of community managers" is the line I'll steal. It matches what I keep seeing: the specific, slightly unpolished answer in a thread gets cited, the polished homepage copy doesn't. Which makes Derk's 15-minute rule the real GEO strategy, not a productivity aside. One honest question for Derk: how do you tell whether the subreddit is feeding the AI crawlers or just the eight engineers who show up? The 8,000 number is nice, but human reach and AI citation feel like two different scoreboards, and I'd want to know which one moved.