The build in public playbook: What to share, when, and where
The Build in Public Playbook: What to Share, When, and Where
You launched your side project three weeks ago. It's rough around the edges, but it works. Your instinct is to hide until it's perfect. Your second instinct is to spam every corner of the internet about it immediately. Both are wrong.
Building in public is one of the most underrated growth strategies for founders, but it's also one of the easiest to mess up. The tension is real: share too much and you look amateur, share too little and nobody knows you exist. Share the wrong stuff and you waste time that could've gone to actual building.
The founders winning at this have a framework. They know what to share, when to share it, and where their audience actually hangs out. Let's break down how to do this without losing your mind.
What to Share: The Categories That Actually Matter
Not all updates are created equal. Some things will resonate with people. Others will make them scroll past without thinking. Here's what actually gets traction.
The Problem You're Solving
Start here. Before you talk about your product, talk about the problem. People connect with problems, not features. If you're building a tool for developers who hate context-switching, don't lead with "we built a dashboard." Lead with "I was losing 2+ hours a day jumping between 15 different tools."
This is your hook. It's relatable. People will respond to it because they either have the problem or they know someone who does. When you share this, you're not really sharing about your product yet—you're starting a conversation about a real pain point.
Real Numbers and Metrics
Vague updates get ignored. Specific ones get engagement. "We hit a milestone" is boring. "We went from 12 to 247 users in 6 weeks" is interesting. People want proof of traction because it validates their assumption that your thing might actually be useful.
Don't wait for big numbers either. "Got our first 10 paying customers" is a totally valid update. "3 people signed up this week" might feel small to you, but in the context of your journey, it's progress. And progress is contagious—people want to follow things that are moving.
The caveat: if your numbers are going down, you don't have to broadcast it. That's what private conversations with advisors are for. But if you're trending up, share it.
Lessons and Failures
Here's the uncomfortable truth: people love failures more than wins. A post about "we spent two weeks building the wrong feature" gets more engagement than "feature shipped." Why? Because failures are educational. They teach people something.
Share what you learned when something didn't work. "We thought people wanted X, but they actually wanted Y. Here's what we learned." That's gold. You're not just updating people on your progress—you're actually teaching them something they can use in their own work.
This also makes you more credible. Founders who only share wins look like they're selling. Founders who share wins and failures look like they're learning in public. There's a massive difference.
The Build Process (Not Every Step)
The temptation is to share every commit, every bug fix, every small iteration. Don't. That's noise. But sharing the bigger blocks of work? That's valuable.
"Just finished the auth system" is good. "Fixed a styling bug on mobile" is not. One is a meaningful milestone. The other is implementation detail that 95% of your audience doesn't care about.
The rule of thumb: if it took you a day or more, or if it's something that changes how the product works or feels, it's worth sharing. Otherwise, batch it up with other small stuff.
When to Share: Timing and Cadence
Consistency matters more than frequency. Posting once a week every week will get you further than posting five times one week and then going silent for a month.
The Launch Sequence
When you're launching something, the timing matters.
- Before launch: Tease the problem, not the solution. "We're building something for X audience." Get people curious. Aim for 2-3 weeks out.
- Launch day: Go big. This is when you share across multiple platforms. Explain what you built, why you built it, and who it's for. Keep it to one clear message though.
- Post-launch: Share the metrics and feedback. People want to know how it went. "We got 150 signups on day one" or "Here's what people said" keeps the momentum going.
Regular Updates During Development
Between launches, aim for one substantive update per week. Not a daily standup. Not a monthly recap. Weekly is the sweet spot—frequent enough that people remember you exist, infrequent enough that you're not spending all your time writing posts instead of building.
Some weeks you'll have more to share than others. That's fine. A slow week where all you have is a small lesson learned is still worth a post. A week where you shipped something major deserves a longer-form breakdown.
The Consistency Kill Switch
If you can't commit to posting regularly, don't start. One post followed by six months of silence makes you look abandoned, not thoughtful. It's better to post nothing than to post sporadically. If you're going radio silent, say so upfront: "Taking a break to focus on product, back with updates in Q2."
Where to Share: Picking Your Channels Wisely
Every platform is not created equal. Your audience is concentrated in a few specific places. Find them and focus there instead of spreading yourself thin.
Twitter/X (The Default)
This is where most founders and investors are scrolling. It's the de facto platform for build in public. If you're only going to pick one platform, pick this one.
The format works well for quick updates, metrics, and lessons. A short-form breakdown of what you learned is perfect for Twitter. Threading longer thoughts works too, though people's attention drops with each additional tweet.
The traction is real here. A good post can reach 10,000+ people who actually care about what you're building. Compare that to other platforms and it's not even close.
LinkedIn (If You're B2B)
If your product is enterprise or B2B focused, LinkedIn is your second channel. The algorithm favors longer posts, personal stories, and lessons learned. It's where actual decision-makers hang out.
Don't cross-post your tweets to LinkedIn. People can smell that. Write specifically for LinkedIn. Longer form, more context, more emotion. "Building for enterprise customers taught me X" does way better on LinkedIn than on Twitter.
Your Own Email List
This is underrated. Build an email list from day one. Even if you have 50 subscribers, those 50 people are more likely to convert to customers than your 5,000 Twitter followers because they actively chose to hear from you.
Send a weekly update to your list. More detailed than Twitter. More personal. This is where you can share the harder stuff—the struggles, the strategic decisions, the long-term vision. Twitter is performance. Email is intimacy.
Your Own Blog/Website
For longer posts—retrospectives, detailed breakdowns, lessons learned—write on your own domain. This is your permanent home. Twitter posts disappear into the timeline. Blog posts live forever and get indexed by Google.
You can link to the blog post from Twitter, but don't force long-form content into tweets. Write once for your blog, then create a Twitter thread or summary that links back to the full post.
Communities (Strategically)
Product Hunt, Hacker News, indie hacker forums—these have communities of engaged people. But they're not growth channels if you're just broadcasting. They work if you're genuinely participating and happen to have something relevant to share.
Launch on Product Hunt when you have a real product to show, not before. Show up on Hacker News to discuss problems and learn, and your work will get attention when it's relevant. Show up just to promote and you'll get flagged as spam.
The Real Takeaway
Building in public isn't a marketing strategy—it's a mindset. You're building something real, and you're inviting people to watch and learn as you figure it out. The people who do this well aren't performing. They're just being honest about their journey.
Pick one or two channels to focus on. Share the right things—problems, progress, and lessons. Do it consistently, even if it's just once a week. Don't worry about perfect posts. Real, honest updates beat polished nonsense every single time.
The founders building the most interesting things right now aren't hiding. They're not perfectly executing in secret. They're iterating in public, learning in public, and growing in public. Start today. Commit to one update this week.