Build in public, and post it where your users are.
A guide for indie app makers: what building in public is, what to share, which platforms fit, and how to turn each milestone into a TikTok slideshow and an X post without filming yourself.
Free, no sign-up. Type your App Store app and get three slideshow ideas for it in about 20 seconds.
What is building in public?
Building in public means sharing the work of making a product while you make it: what you shipped, what broke, what users said and, if you choose, the numbers. You post as you go, so people follow the story before the product is finished, and some of them become its first users.
It started with founders publishing their metrics. Baremetrics made its revenue dashboard public in February 2014 and Buffer followed a few months later, then published its salaries too. Today "building in public" mostly means a founder posting short, honest updates, with #buildinpublic on X as the meeting point.
Trust
People buy from someone they've watched work. Months of honest updates beat a polished landing page.
Pieter Levels has run his products without employees since 2014 and posts most of his numbers on X. The audience came from the updates.
Feedback
A half-finished screen gets replies before you spend a month on the wrong feature.
Nomad List began in 2014 as a public spreadsheet of cities that he tweeted out. By the next morning about 100 people had filled it in.
Distribution
Every update is a post, and the launch lands on people who already care.
The Product Hunt launch goes better when followers are waiting for it.
What to share, and what to keep to yourself.
Transparency is a choice you make post by post, not a promise to publish everything. Decide the rules once.
ShareThe things that build trust and get replies
- One metric, every month. Users, revenue or downloads. Pick one you'll keep public when it goes down.
- Decisions and why. Why you cut a feature or raised a price.
- Mistakes, with the lesson. Every founder has made the same one.
- Screens of what you shipped. The ugly first version and the fixed one.
- Your tools. Useful to other builders, easy to save.
Keep privateThe things that cost more than they earn
- Anything about a user. Names, emails, messages. Ask before quoting feedback, and strip identifying details.
- Secrets in screenshots. API keys, admin URLs, terminal output with tokens. Crop before you post.
- A channel that works only while it's quiet. Share it after it stops working.
- Promises. "Coming next week" on a feature you might kill.
- Other people's business. Co-founder arguments, a deal still being signed.
Where to build in public: X, LinkedIn, Reddit and TikTok.
X and Reddit put you in front of other builders, LinkedIn reaches professionals, and TikTok reaches everyone else, which matters if your app is for consumers.
X (Twitter)#buildinpublic, founder communities
Short updates with one screenshot, a monthly numbers post, replies to other builders.
The audience is mostly other founders. Great for feedback, weaker for selling a consumer app.
Dev tools, SaaS, first followers
LinkedInText posts and document carousels
A longer post with one lesson, short paragraphs, a question at the end.
Hype reads badly here. Write the lesson, not the victory lap.
B2B buyers, hiring, partners
Redditr/buildinpublic, r/SideProject, r/indiehackers
Detailed write-ups of what you tried, with real numbers.
Most subreddits remove self-promotion. Read the rules first.
Honest feedback, launch posts
TikTokPhoto slideshows, no filming
Your milestone as a story slideshow: a hook, a few slides, the progress moment on a real screen.
A dashboard screenshot alone won't travel. It needs a story around it.
Consumer apps, reach beyond tech
Building in public on TikTok: stories travel, lists get saved.
We studied founder slideshows on TikTok (432 screened in October 2026, 20 picked, 18 with public play counts) and checked them against our library of 1,332 viral slideshows. Two kinds of post do two different jobs.
median views for the 68 story slideshows in our library. Only 1.4% saved them, against 3.5% for the whole library.
plays for the biggest "day 1 of building" founder story we found, with 0.1% saved. Another: 566K plays, 0.7% saved.
median saved for the seven "apps I use to build my startup" stacks, at a median of 755K plays. Useful posts get kept.
Most milestones fit one of four formats that already went viral. The milestone becomes the "progress moment": the slide where your real screen proves it happened.
The income breakdown
One income line per slide, the total last.
For revenue updates
The confession list
Specific, slightly embarrassing, very shareable.
For failures
The hindsight list
The 13 hindsight hooks in our library have a median of 4.6M views.
For launches and lessons
The rating list
A score and one honest line each. Readers comment their own.
For monthly numbers
Tap a card to swipe the original. Starter packs and tool stacks, the formats founders use to market software, are covered in TikTok marketing for SaaS.
Build in public post generator: one milestone, three posts.
Pick what happened. You get a TikTok slideshow outline built on a proven format, with the progress moment marked, plus an X post and a LinkedIn post. Edit the brackets, then post. Nothing leaves your browser.
TikTok slideshow 6 slides
X post
LinkedIn post
Two accounts: you, and a creator for your app.
Building in public grows an audience of people who like watching founders. For a consumer app, those are rarely the people who'll use it, so run two accounts with two jobs.
- Posts
- Milestones: launches, numbers, failures, features.
- Reaches
- Other builders, early adopters, future hires.
- Win
- Trust, feedback, a launch that lands.
The creator accountA personal account about your user's life- Posts
- Slideshows about a life your users recognise, with the app on one slide.
- Reaches
- The people who'd download it, who never read #buildinpublic.
- Win
- Downloads. "What app is that?" in the comments.
Run both as personal accounts, not business accounts, so you keep the full sound library (the trade-offs are in TikTok business vs personal account). The creator account is the core of how to market an app on TikTok, and it doesn't have to show you: see faceless TikTok.
ClonBot runs the creator account. It starts from 1,332 slideshows that already went viral, gives the account one consistent creator, shows your real app screens on the phone, and builds posts every night for you to approve. Claude users can run it through the ClonBot MCP server.
Build in public questions.
What does "build in public" mean?
Sharing the process of building a product while you build it: progress, mistakes, decisions and sometimes numbers, posted openly, so the product has an audience when it launches.
How do I start building in public?
Pick one platform and one rhythm, such as a short update every weekday and a numbers post each month. Decide what stays private before you start. Post what you shipped with a screenshot, reply to everyone, and give it three months.
Is building in public worth it?
For most solo founders, yes: it costs little and builds trust, feedback and an audience at once. The catch is who that audience is. It is mostly other builders: perfect for developer tools, weaker for consumer apps.
How do I build in public on Twitter (X) versus TikTok?
On X you post short updates to other founders and the replies are the value. On TikTok the same milestone becomes a story slideshow that can reach people far outside tech.
What are good build in public examples?
Early open startups such as Baremetrics and Buffer published their revenue dashboards in 2014. Pieter Levels shares the numbers behind his products on X. On TikTok, the strongest founder slideshows we found were "apps I use to build my startup" lists and "day 1 of building" stories.
Do I need to show my face?
No. A slideshow of your desk, your screens and your notes works on TikTok, and the creator account for your app can use a consistent creator instead of you.
Keep reading
You build in public. We run the account your users see.
Setting up your app and creator is free. Plans from $99 a month for 30 posts.