Building in Public: How Sharing Progress Gets Users

There's a founder building a competitor to your product right now. They have the same features, similar pricing, and comparable quality. But they have something you don't: an audience of 5,000 people who've been following their journey for six months, rooting for them, and waiting to sign up.

That's the power of building in public. It turns the process of building a product into a marketing channel. Every feature you ship, every decision you make, every metric you hit (or miss) becomes content that attracts potential users, builds trust, and creates a community of supporters who will use and promote your product when it launches.

Building in public isn't just "tweeting about your startup." It's a deliberate strategy for converting attention into users. Done well, it can be your primary acquisition channel for the first 100 users — and the foundation for sustainable growth long after.

This guide covers the full building-in-public playbook: what to share, where to share it, how to convert followers into users, and how to handle the uncomfortable parts of public transparency.

Why Building in Public Works for User Acquisition

The Trust Shortcut

New products have a trust problem. Users don't know if you'll be around in six months, if the product works as advertised, or if you'll actually fix bugs. Building in public solves this by making your track record visible in real time.

When someone discovers your product and then sees six months of consistent updates, shipped features, honest metrics, and responsive communication — they trust you. Not because you told them to, but because the evidence is public.

The Relationship Pre-Build

Traditional marketing creates awareness at the point of sale. Building in public creates awareness months before. By the time you ask someone to sign up, they already know you, your product, your values, and your capabilities.

This is why build-in-public products consistently see higher conversion rates from awareness to signup. The relationship already exists.

The Content Machine

Founders who build in public never run out of content to post. Your daily work IS the content:

• Shipped a feature? Post about it.
• Made a hard decision? Share your reasoning.
• Hit a milestone? Celebrate publicly.
• Made a mistake? Share the lesson.
• Got customer feedback? Show how you responded.

While other founders stare at a blank content calendar, you're generating material by doing what you'd be doing anyway — building your product.

What to Share (The Building-in-Public Content Framework)

Not all building-in-public content is created equal. Some posts attract users. Some attract fellow founders. Some attract nobody. Here's what works for user acquisition specifically:

Category 1: Progress Updates (Weekly)

What: What you built this week, what you're building next week.

Format:

This week at [product]:

Shipped:
- [Feature 1] — [why it matters for users]
- [Feature 2] — [why it matters for users]
- [Bug fix] — reported by [user], fixed in [time]

Next week:
- [Upcoming feature] — based on [user feedback/data]
- [Improvement] — because [reason]

[Screenshot or demo GIF]

Why it converts: Shows momentum. Users want to use products that are actively improving.

Category 2: Metrics and Milestones (Bi-weekly or Monthly)

What: Revenue, users, engagement, growth rate — the real numbers.

Format:

Month 3 at [product]:

- Users: [X] (up [Y]% from last month)
- MRR: $[X]
- Churn: [X]%
- NPS: [X]

What's working: [specific channel or feature]
What's not: [honest assessment]
What I'm changing: [specific action]

Why it converts: Transparency builds trust. Also, growth metrics create social proof — "if 500 people are using this, maybe I should too."

What to share honestly:

• Revenue (even if it's small — $247 MRR is more impressive than silence)
• User counts (again, even small numbers)
• Growth rates (percentage growth is impressive even with small numbers)
• Churn (sharing churn shows maturity and honesty)

What to NOT share:

• Investor details or cap table information
• Individual user data
• Proprietary algorithms or competitive advantages
• Financial details that aren't yours to share (investor revenue, etc.)

Category 3: Decisions and Reasoning (As They Happen)

What: Important product or business decisions, and why you made them.

Format:

Tough decision this week: [decision]

The options:
A) [Option A] — pros: [X], cons: [Y]
B) [Option B] — pros: [X], cons: [Y]

We chose [option] because [reasoning].

What would you have done?

Why it converts: Demonstrates thoughtfulness. Also, asking for input creates engagement and makes followers feel like co-creators.

Category 4: Lessons and Failures (When They Happen)

What: Things that went wrong and what you learned.

Format:

Messed up this week: [what happened]

What went wrong: [honest explanation]
Impact: [who was affected and how]
What we did: [how we fixed it]
What we changed: [prevention measures]

Lesson: [takeaway]

Why it converts: Vulnerability is memorable. People share failure stories more than success stories. And it shows you're the kind of team that acknowledges mistakes and fixes them — exactly the team users want behind their tools.

Category 5: User Stories (Ongoing)

What: How real users are using your product.

Format:

Cool use case from [user/company]:

They were doing [old way]. Now they use [product] to [new way].

Result: [specific outcome]

[Quote from user, with permission]

Why it converts: Social proof plus inspiration. Potential users see themselves in user stories.

Where to Share

Twitter/X (Primary Channel)

Twitter is the default platform for building in public. The audience is already there — founders, indie hackers, developers, and early adopters.

Posting cadence: 1-2 tweets/day minimum. Mix of original content and engagement.

Content mix:

• 40% progress updates and product content
• 30% engagement (replies, quote tweets, discussions)
• 20% lessons and insights
• 10% personal/behind-the-scenes

Thread strategy: Save your best content for threads. A well-crafted thread about a lesson or milestone can reach 10-50x the audience of a single tweet.

For more on LinkedIn as a complementary channel, see our guide on building in public on LinkedIn for founders.

LinkedIn (Secondary, for B2B)

LinkedIn's algorithm currently favors personal stories from founders. If your product is B2B, LinkedIn can be as effective as Twitter.

Key difference from Twitter: LinkedIn rewards longer-form posts (1,000-1,500 characters) with a hook in the first line. The audience is more professional, so frame your updates in terms of business outcomes.

For strategies specific to LinkedIn audience building, check out how founders can build an audience on LinkedIn.

Indie Hackers (Community)

Indie Hackers is built for building in public. The community is supportive, engaged, and full of potential users (especially if your product serves founders or small businesses).

What works on IH:

• Monthly milestone updates
• Detailed post-mortems of decisions
• Revenue and growth reports
• Ask-for-feedback posts

Your Own Blog (For SEO and Depth)

Short-form posts go on social. Long-form goes on your blog. Monthly deep-dives on decisions, lessons, and metrics serve double duty: building-in-public content AND SEO content.

Converting Followers Into Users

Building an audience is worthless if that audience never uses your product. Here's how to bridge the gap:

The Soft CTA

Every 3-4 posts, include a natural mention of your product. Not a hard sell — a contextual reference.

Good: "This is why we built [product] — to solve exactly this problem. If you're dealing with this too, [link]."

Bad: "BUY MY PRODUCT. LINK IN BIO."

The Launch Moment

After weeks of building in public, your formal launch becomes an event. Your followers have been watching you build, and now they get to try the result.

How to leverage build-in-public for launch:

1. Two weeks before: "We're launching [product] on [date]. If you've been following the journey, you'll be the first to try it."
2. One week before: "Sneak peek of [product]. [Screenshot/demo]. Launch in 7 days."
3. Launch day: "It's live. [Product] is officially available. You've watched me build this for [X months]. Now it's your turn to try it. [Link]"
4. Post-launch: "24 hours since launch. [X] signups, [Y] messages, [Z] pieces of feedback. Here's what's happening..."

The Waitlist Funnel

Before your product is ready, use building in public to build a waitlist:

1. Include a waitlist link in your bio
2. Mention the waitlist naturally in posts: "If you want early access when we launch, waitlist link is in my bio"
3. Email the waitlist with your build-in-public updates (keeps them warm)
4. Give waitlist members first access when you launch

The DM Pipeline

People who engage with your build-in-public content are warm leads. When someone consistently likes, comments, or shares your posts:

1. Follow them back
2. Engage with their content
3. After a few interactions, DM them: "Hey, thanks for following along with [product] — would you want to be one of our first users?"

This doesn't feel like cold outreach because it isn't. It's a warm conversation with someone who already knows your product.

The Uncomfortable Parts (And How to Handle Them)

Sharing Revenue When It's Small

"MRR: $47" feels embarrassing. But here's the thing: nobody expects you to be at $100K MRR when you're building in public from day one. Small numbers with consistent growth are impressive and relatable.

The audience that follows build-in-public content isn't looking for success stories. They're looking for honest journeys. $47 MRR this month and $120 MRR next month is a more compelling story than $10K MRR with no context.

Sharing Failures

Posting about a bad week, a lost customer, or a wrong decision feels vulnerable. But these posts consistently outperform success posts in engagement. People share failure stories. People remember vulnerability. And people trust founders who admit when things go wrong.

The framework for sharing failures:

1. What happened (be specific)
2. What you learned
3. What you're doing differently

Never share failures as pity-seeking. Share them as lessons.

Dealing With Negative Responses

Most build-in-public responses are positive. But occasionally, someone will:

• Question your approach
• Point out a flaw
• Dismiss your product

How to respond: Thank them, consider their point, and respond constructively. Never get defensive. The audience is watching how you handle criticism, and grace under pressure builds more trust than any revenue screenshot.

Maintaining Consistency

Building in public only works with consistency. Sporadic posting builds no audience. You need to show up regularly — minimum 4-5 times per week — for at least 3-4 months before the compound effects kick in.

Sustainability tips:

• Batch content creation (spend 30 minutes Sunday drafting the week's posts)
• Keep a running notes document of things worth sharing
• Set reminders to post if you tend to forget
• Use scheduling tools to maintain consistency during busy weeks

Measuring Building-in-Public ROI

Track these metrics monthly:

| Metric | What It Tells You | |--------|-------------------| | Follower growth | Audience building momentum | | Average post engagement | Content quality and relevance | | Profile link clicks | Interest in your product | | Waitlist signups from social | Direct conversion | | Signups attributed to social | Revenue impact | | DMs received about product | Warm lead pipeline |

The attribution challenge: Not every user who follows your build-in-public journey will sign up directly from a social link. Some will Google you later. Some will see your product on another platform and remember your posts. Social attribution is always underestimated in analytics.

The Compound Effect

Building in public is a compounding strategy. Month 1 feels like shouting into the void. Month 3, you have a small but engaged following. Month 6, your posts reach thousands and your launches have a built-in audience.

The founders who start building in public before they need users are the ones who have users when they launch. The founders who start after they launch are always playing catch-up.

Once you've built an audience through building in public, you can amplify it with tools like Any, which helps manage multi-channel content distribution and engagement at scale. But the authentic foundation — your voice, your story, your transparency — has to be genuinely yours.

For related strategies, check out our Hacker News early users guide and first 100 users timeline. For the complete acquisition framework, visit our guide to getting your first 100 users.

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Building in public is the only marketing strategy where doing your job IS the content. Share your progress, be honest about your numbers, celebrate wins and own failures, and show up consistently. The audience compounds. The trust compounds. And when you're ready to ask people to try your product, they already want to.