The honest answer to "does it work?" is: it depends on what you're optimizing for, and most people doing it are optimizing for the wrong thing.
Build in public sounds like a growth strategy. But does it actually convert to users and revenue? Here's an honest breakdown of when BIP works, when it doesn't, and how to do it right.
Building in public can lead to product signups, but it's a long-term strategy that requires patience, often taking 6 to 12 months to build trust. Ensure your audience aligns with your customer base, as this approach is most effective when your followers are likely to become users.
The honest answer to "does it work?" is: it depends on what you're optimizing for, and most people doing it are optimizing for the wrong thing.
Posting to silence
Growing slowly
Real signups
Real build in public is documenting your decisions, failures, experiments, and specific numbers in a way that gives other founders genuine insight into your journey.
What most people do: posting milestones and vague lessons that sound like they're sharing but aren't actually useful. "Hit $500 MRR today. Grateful. The key is consistency" — this is BIP-flavored content. It gets likes from other founders and converts to approximately zero users.
The distinction matters because the motivation behind each type produces different content, different audiences, and wildly different outcomes.
What it does well:
What it usually can't do: Get you users quickly. BIP is a 6–12 month strategy. The compounding effect is real — a body of honest, specific posts accumulates credibility over time. But if you need 50 signups in the next 30 days, BIP is not the answer.
StartKitz generates X/Twitter posts, hooks, and multi-angle social content for your app — so you're not starting from blank each time you sit down to post about your product.
Generate free preview →The founders who turn BIP into actual revenue share a pattern:
Their ICP is founders. If you're building for the founder or indie hacker audience — startup tools, SaaS infrastructure, marketing tools for builders — then your BIP audience is your customer. When you post about your journey, you're marketing directly to the people who would buy.
They share specific failures, not just successes. Posts about what went wrong get 3–5× more engagement and shares than milestone posts. Failure posts also build more genuine trust because they signal honesty.
They post consistently for more than 60 days before expecting results. Most people quit BIP at day 30 when nothing seems to be happening. The compounding starts around day 45–60.
They link BIP content back to their product naturally. Not every post mentions the product. But when they do, it's specifically referenced in context: "I solved this problem using [product], here's how it worked."
Instead of "what I learned this week," use this structure:
What all four have in common: they give the reader something they can use or learn from independently of whether they ever try your product.
BIP works as a trust-building and audience-compounding strategy over 6+ months. It does not work as a launch channel. It works when your audience is also your customer. It doesn't when you're building for a non-founder audience who isn't on Twitter watching indie hacker accounts.
If you decide to do it: commit to 90 days minimum, post 3× per week, make every post specific enough that someone could act on it without knowing who you are, and measure profile visits and DMs — not just likes.
Before committing 90 days to a strategy, answer these four questions honestly. They'll tell you whether BIP is the right channel for you right now — or whether your time is better spent elsewhere.
Question 1: Is your target customer active on Twitter/X or LinkedIn?
If yes → BIP has real upside for you. Your audience will see your content in a context where they're already consuming founder content.
If no → BIP builds an audience of founders who won't buy your product. A solopreneur building a restaurant inventory tool, a pet care SaaS, or a consumer fitness app will spend 90 days building an audience of developers who have no problem being solved. Your time is better spent in the communities where your actual customer is.
Question 2: Do you have something specific and honest to share?
BIP works on specificity. If you're not willing to share real numbers (MRR, churn, conversion rates), real failures (features that flopped, positioning that missed), and real decisions in progress — you'll end up posting vague inspirational content that earns follows from people who'll never buy. If you're not comfortable being specific: BIP isn't the right strategy yet.
Question 3: Can you commit to 90 days before evaluating?
The founders who quit BIP at day 30 almost always conclude it doesn't work. The founders who stay for 90+ days almost always find their content voice, identify which formats resonate, and start seeing the compounding returns. If 90 days of consistent posting feels impossible given your current workload: don't start. Half-hearted BIP — sporadic posts, long gaps, inconsistent format — produces no results and gives you bad data about whether the strategy works.
Question 4: Is your product ready enough to be shown?
BIP brings visibility. If your product is pre-launch or in a rough state, that visibility can backfire — you build an audience, they visit your product, they're not impressed, and you've burned that first impression on your most engaged prospects. The right time to start BIP: when your product delivers one clear, working outcome.
Most advice on BIP skips the uncomfortable reality of what the first 30 days feel like. Here's an honest timeline:
Days 1–14: Silence
Your posts get 3–8 likes. Most of them are from accounts that like everything. You have no idea if the content is resonating. This is normal and not a signal to change your strategy. Your posts are not being seen by enough people yet to generate signal.
Days 15–30: First Feedback
One post lands better than the others. Maybe it gets 30–50 likes, a few replies, one or two profile visits. This is not success — it's the first real data point. Look at what was different about that post: was it more specific? More vulnerable? A specific number? Double down on that quality.
Days 31–60: Pattern Emergence
You have enough posts to see which formats and topics consistently outperform. Your follower growth is slow but your per-post engagement is improving. Two or three people have DM'd you about your product. This is the stage where most founders quit right before the flywheel starts.
Days 61–90: Early Compounding
Posts start getting shared beyond your immediate followers. A slightly bigger account mentions your content. One or two inbound leads arrive with zero outreach on your part. These are small signals — but they're real ones, and they're the beginning of the compounding effect that BIP eventually produces.
Days 90+: Strategy Refinement
You now have data: which content types drive profile visits, which drive DMs, which drive product trials. You optimize toward the content that moves the metric you actually care about (signups, not likes) and cut the content that earns engagement but no action.
BIP is one distribution strategy among several. It deserves an honest comparison against the alternatives so you can make a real choice about where to invest your limited time.
| Strategy | Time to first result | Compounding? | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Build in Public | 60–90 days | Yes, strongly | Founders whose ICP is also founders |
| Community engagement | 2–4 weeks | Moderate | Products solving niche problems with active communities |
| Direct outreach | 1–2 weeks | No | Early validation, high-value B2B |
| SEO content | 3–6 months | Yes, strongly | Products with high search intent around the problem |
| Paid ads | Immediate | No | Products with proven conversion and budget |
BIP ranks well on compounding but poorly on speed. If your priority is users in the next 30 days, community engagement and direct outreach will outperform BIP in the short term — even if BIP outperforms them over 12 months.
The founders who win at distribution don't choose one strategy and ignore the others. They pick the 2–3 that match their current stage, run them simultaneously, and shift allocation as they get results data. BIP earns a slot in that mix when the compounding phase starts, typically after month 3.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does building in public drive product signups?
It can — but not immediately. BIP is a 6–12 month trust-building strategy, not a launch channel. It works best when your audience is also your customer (you're building for founders or developers). If your customers aren't on X watching indie hacker accounts, BIP builds an audience that isn't your buyer.
How often should I post about my startup on social media?
For build-in-public content: 3 times per week, with at least a 90-day commitment before evaluating results. Each post should be specific enough to stand alone — specific numbers, honest failures, real decisions. Vague 'feeling grateful' posts don't compound. Specificity is what earns both trust and algorithmic reach.
What should I post when building in public?
Four formats that convert: experiment posts (I tried X, here's the result), failure posts (I assumed X, I was wrong, here's the data), decision posts (I'm choosing between X and Y, here's my thinking), and number posts (30 days, specific metrics, what I'm changing). The common thread: give readers something they can use or learn from independently of whether they ever try your product.
How do I avoid annoying people when promoting my startup on social media?
Don't make your product the point of the post. Build-in-public content works when the insight has standalone value — someone should be able to learn from it without ever trying your product. The product mention comes naturally at the end as context, not as the reason for the post. Threads that lead with the product get scrolled past. Threads that lead with the insight get shared.
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