Building in Public: The Indian Founder's Honest Guide to What Works
The first tweet I published with our actual MRR number got 3 likes. Two of them were from people I already knew. The third was a bot.
I nearly stopped there.
Most "building in public" content online is written by people who already had an audience before they started. The 0β1 phase β posting consistently when nobody is watching β looks very different from the behind-the-scenes stories of founders who blew up overnight.
This is the honest version. What worked after eight months of doing it as an Indian SaaS founder with no prior Twitter presence.
Why I Started (and Why You Probably Should Too)
The trigger was simple: our cold outreach wasn't working, our ad spend was producing expensive leads with low conversion, and I couldn't afford to hire sales people. I needed distribution that didn't cost money to scale.
Building in public costs time, not money. And it compounds in a way that ads don't β every piece of content you publish stays up and can bring in a new follower, customer, or investor months later.
The secondary benefit I didn't anticipate: accountability. When you've publicly committed to hitting βΉ5L MRR by a certain date, you work differently toward that goal.
What Content Actually Works
I got this wrong for the first two months. I was posting product updates, feature releases, and "excited to announce" content. Almost nobody cared.
The content that consistently got traction:
Specific numbers with context. Not "we're growing fast" β "we went from 12 to 31 paying customers in 6 weeks, here's the 3 things that moved the needle." Specificity creates credibility. Vague updates create nothing.
Genuine failures and course corrections. My highest-engagement thread in 2025 was about a feature we built and then completely removed after user feedback destroyed our assumptions. It got 200+ retweets. Pain and honest learning resonates more than wins.
Process posts. "Here's how we handle churn conversations at AutoChat" or "Our exact onboarding email sequence and why we structured it this way." Founders and potential customers both engage with these β founders because they're learning, customers because they understand the product better.
The India-specific angle. This is underused. International building-in-public content exists in abundance. Content specifically about building SaaS for Indian customers β pricing, payment infrastructure, WhatsApp integration decisions, GST handling β has very little competition and a hungry audience.
What Didn't Work
Daily "progress updates" with nothing actionable. Day 47 of building X. Today I wrote some code and had a call. Nobody cares.
Threads that were clearly written to go viral. The formula-driven "I spent 3 years doing X, here are 10 lessons" threads work for big accounts. When you have 400 followers, they read as desperate.
Asking for follows, shares, or engagement. The explicit asks almost always produce nothing. The genuine posts almost always produce more than expected.
The Actual Timeline
Month 1-2: Almost zero traction. Post consistently anyway. This is the hardest phase.
Month 3: A few people start recognizing your name. You get DMs from other founders at similar stages.
Month 4-5: One post hits significantly bigger than usual. New followers arrive. Engagement on subsequent posts improves because the new audience is relevant.
Month 6+: The compound effect becomes visible. Inbound starts happening. People mention your product in conversations because they've been following your journey.
47 customer conversations from building in public over 8 months sounds small. But these were warm conversations β people who already knew our product, believed in the mission, and were pre-sold before the first call. Close rates were 3x what we see from cold outreach.
The Platform Question
X (Twitter) is still the primary building-in-public platform globally, but in India, LinkedIn is increasingly effective for B2B audiences. The audiences are different: X has more founders, developers, and startup-ecosystem people; LinkedIn has more business owners, procurement decision-makers, and corporate buyers.
My recommendation: start with one platform, be consistent for 90 days, measure what comes back, then decide whether to add a second.
The Real Ask
Building in public is not a quick growth hack. It's a long-term distribution strategy that requires showing up consistently when nobody is watching and trusting that the compound interest will eventually pay.
The founders I know who've made it work share one trait: they kept going past the point where most people quit. Usually somewhere in month 2 or 3, when it feels like shouting into a void.
If you're in that void right now β keep going. The turn comes.
