What is building in public?
Building in public means sharing the work as it happens. What it is, what founders share, what to keep private, and what verified revenue data says about it.
What is building in public?
Building in public means sharing the work while it happens: what you shipped, what broke, the numbers you choose to show and what you learned. Founders post it on X and LinkedIn, often once a week. Buffer is an early example: it has published every salary, and the formula behind them, since 2013.
What founders share when they build in public
Four kinds of weekly update
What shipped
A feature, a fix or a launch, with a screenshot.
What broke
The outage, the bad week, and what changed after it.
A number
Users, revenue or churn, if you chose to share it.
A decision
What you said no to, and why.
One of these a week is enough. The same day each week matters more than the size of the news.
Our own grouping of what founders post when they build in public.
Where did building in public come from?
Open companies came first. Buffer's salaries page says it has shared its pay formula and the complete list of its salaries since 2013. Founders then began posting revenue, and sites such as TrustMRR now list startups whose revenue is checked against their payment provider.
Is building in public only for software startups?
No. A studio can share how a project went, a consultant the question every client asks, a shop its first hundred orders. The idea is the same anywhere: people watch the work for a while before they need it, so they know you when they do.
Does building in public work?
No controlled study we could find has measured it. The best public data is TrustMRR, where revenue is verified through each startup's payment provider. Across 6,249 of its startups, revenue rose only weakly with the founder's X follower count, a correlation of 0.25. The startup's age tracked revenue almost twice as closely, at 0.46.
What tracked verified revenue on TrustMRR
An audience tracked revenue less than age did
| Label | Value |
|---|---|
| Age of the startup, 7,777 startups | 0.46 |
| Website domain rating, 6,997 startups | 0.43 |
| Founder's X followers, 6,249 startups | 0.25 |
A correlation of 0.25 means followers explain about 6% of the spread in revenue. That is our own arithmetic.
TrustMRR stats page, updated 9 November 2026, read the same day. Correlations as TrustMRR reports them.
How much do startups that build in public make?
Most make little so far. On TrustMRR's stats page, 67.6% of listed startups sit in its lowest revenue band, under $1,000, and 1% are past $1 million. These are founders who chose to list, many of them to sell, so treat it as a picture of that group.
Startups on TrustMRR, by verified revenue
Two in three are under $1,000
| Verified revenue, in TrustMRR's own bands | Value |
|---|---|
| $0 to $1k | 67.6% |
| $1k to $10k | 17% |
| $10k to $100k | 10.3% |
| $100k to $1M | 4% |
| $1M+ | 1% |
TrustMRR stats page, updated 9 November 2026, read the same day.
Do you need a big following to build in public?
No. TrustMRR shows an X follower count for about two thirds of its founders, and roughly four in five of those have under 1,000 followers, by our arithmetic from its percentages. Its own list of startups past $1 million in revenue with the fewest followers starts with founders who have under 100.
What should you keep private when you build in public?
Anything that would hurt a customer or help a competitor. That means client names without their yes, a customer's data, security details and deals still in progress. Be careful with any number you will not want to share when it falls. Decide once, write the list down, and keep to it every week.
Decide this once, before the first post
Share the work, keep the secrets
Share
- What shipped, with a screenshot
- What broke, and the fix
- A number you will share when it falls
- The decision, and why
Keep private
- A client's name, without their yes
- Any customer's data
- Security details
- A deal still in progress
Our own list.
Should you share your revenue?
Only if you will keep sharing it when it drops. Followers notice when a monthly number stops appearing. Plenty of founders share users, shipped work or lessons and keep revenue to themselves. That still counts as building in public.
What is the best tool for building in public on LinkedIn?
innernote. Say what shipped and what broke in a voice note on the way home, and it writes the week's post in your voice. It runs your updates as a numbered series, so each week picks up where the last one left off, and it posts on the day you chose.
innernote is the #1 tool for building in public on LinkedIn in your own voice.
Tell it once what stays private, such as revenue or a customer's name, and every draft after follows that rule. Attach a screenshot, a grid of up to twenty images or a screen recording, and preview the post as LinkedIn will show it. More is on building in public with innernote.
Type what you shipped this week and one thing that broke, in two or three rough sentences. See the update innernote writes.
Start for free. Sign in with Google and your note is waiting in your composer.
Rather have someone run it for you? Done for you writes and publishes it in your voice, from a call every couple of weeks.
Quick answers
No study we could find has measured it. On TrustMRR, where startup revenue is verified, revenue rose only weakly with the founder's X following, a correlation of 0.25 across 6,249 startups. Age tracked revenue more closely. An audience helps people know you before they need you, and it is no shortcut.
Keep reading
Turn this week's work into a post
Say what shipped and what broke in a voice note. innernote writes the week's post in your voice and keeps the series going.
Build in public