Building in Public: How Indian Founders Are Using Twitter/X to Grow

What "Building in Public" Actually Means

Building in public means sharing your startup journey openly — revenue numbers, failures, experiments, customer conversations, and product decisions — in real time on platforms like Twitter/X, LinkedIn, or your own newsletter. It's the opposite of the traditional "stealth mode until launch" approach.

The idea isn't new, but Indian founders have started doing it at scale in the last 2–3 years, with some standout results.

Why It Works

When you build in public:

• You create an audience before you have a product to sell
• Your learnings attract people with the same problem
• Journalists and investors notice founders who are transparent about metrics
• You get free feedback from the internet before committing to a direction
• Early followers convert to early customers at much higher rates than cold traffic

Indian Founders Doing It Well

Sahil Lavingia (context: Indian-origin, US-based)

Gumroad's Sahil Lavingia became the poster child for building in public — sharing revenue, failures, layoffs, and pivots openly. His transparency built a following that became his product's user base.

Indian SaaS founders on Twitter/X

Founders behind products like Supermeme.ai, Tagmango, Teachify, and several bootstrapped B2B SaaS tools have grown meaningful audiences by documenting their journey: "Week 4: 12 paying customers, ₹18,000 MRR, here's what I learned."

The format works because it's specific, honest, and shows progress over time.

What to Share

• Revenue milestones — "Crossed ₹1 lakh MRR today. Here's what moved the needle." These posts consistently go viral in Indian founder Twitter.
• Failures and pivots — "We killed our original feature after 3 months. Here's why." Honest failure posts get more engagement than success posts.
• Behind the product decisions — "Why we chose Supabase over Firebase" or "We rewrote our pricing page — before/after conversion data."
• Customer conversations — Anonymised quotes from customer calls. "Customer told us they don't care about X feature at all. We built it for 3 weeks." This kind of insight builds credibility.
• Monthly reviews — A simple "what happened in March: MRR, new customers, what I'm focused on in April" thread builds habit around your audience checking in.

What NOT to Share

• Customer names without permission
• Sensitive investor conversations
• Technical architecture that gives competitors a roadmap
• Employee compensation details
• Manufactured milestones ("We just hit 1,000 signups!" when they're all free and inactive)

Building Your Audience on Twitter/X in India

The Indian founder community on Twitter/X is active but niche. A few practices that work:

• Post consistently (3–5x/week minimum)
• Engage with other Indian founders — the community is reciprocal
• Use specific numbers ("₹2.4 lakh MRR" beats "growing revenue")
• Tag relevant communities: #IndianSaaS, #MadeInIndia, #IndianStartup
• Reply to journalists who cover Indian startups — Entrackr, Inc42, YS reporters are all on Twitter

The Compound Effect

Building in public doesn't pay off in week 1 or even month 1. The compounding effect kicks in around month 3–6 when your audience is large enough that every launch, every milestone, every product update reaches people who are already invested in your journey. That's when building in public starts generating real business outcomes rather than just Twitter engagement.

Start small. Post your first "I'm building [X] because [specific problem I personally experienced]" tweet. See what happens.