Building in Public as a Beginner: A No-BS Guide

You've seen the tweets. Someone posts a screenshot of their revenue dashboard, adds "Month 6 of building in public," and collects 2,000 likes. It looks effortless. It looks fun. It looks like something you should be doing.

Then you look at your own side project. Half the buttons don't work. You haven't touched it in a week. Your "revenue dashboard" would just show $0.

So you don't post anything. You tell yourself you'll start building in public once you have something worth showing. And that day never comes.

Here's the thing most people won't tell you about building in public: the interesting part was never the finished product. It was the mess along the way.

What "building in public" actually means

Building in public is sharing your process as you work on something. That's it. Not your results. Not your revenue. Your process.

That means sharing what you're working on today, what broke, what you learned, what confused you. The bar is much lower than you think.

Kevon Cheung, who wrote Build in Public Mastery, puts it well: the value comes from being relatable, not impressive. Nobody connects with "I made $50K this month." People connect with "I spent three hours debugging a CSS issue and it turned out to be a missing semicolon."

If you're a beginner and you want to start building in public, you actually have an advantage. Beginners are relatable. Experts are intimidating. People root for the underdog, not the person who already won.

Why most people quit before they start

The number one reason people never start building in public is they think they need permission to share. Like there's some threshold of accomplishment you need to hit first.

There isn't.

A 2023 survey from Indie Hackers found that builders who shared updates at least weekly were 3x more likely to still be working on their project six months later. The sharing itself created accountability. It wasn't a side effect of progress. It caused progress.

The second reason people quit is they post once, get zero engagement, and assume nobody cares. That's normal. Your first 20 posts will feel like talking into a void. Keep going. The audience builds slowly, then all at once.

How to start (even if your project is embarrassing)

You don't need a following. You don't need a polished product. You don't even need a product at all. Here's what to do in your first week.

Pick one platform

Don't try to post everywhere. Pick one: X (Twitter), LinkedIn, or a niche community like Indie Hackers or Reddit's r/SideProject. X works well for build-in-public content because the format rewards short, honest updates.

Stick with that one platform for at least a month before expanding.

Share what you did, not what you plan to do

Plans are boring. Actions are interesting. Instead of "I'm going to build an app that does X," try "Spent 45 minutes tonight adding a settings page. It's ugly but it works." That's a real update. People can picture you doing that.

If you use a tool like Session Stacker, you already have a built-in source of content. Every time you finish a work session and write down where you left off, that's a potential post. "Today's session: fixed the login bug that's been haunting me for a week. Turns out I was checking the wrong database table." That's interesting. That's human.

Be specific about failures

"Hit a wall today" is vague and forgettable. "Tried to set up Stripe webhooks, got a 400 error for two hours, realized I was sending test data to the live endpoint" is specific and people will remember it. Some will relate. Some will reply with the fix. Either way, you made a connection.

According to research from Harvard Business School, people who share struggles are perceived as more competent, not less, as long as the struggles are real and specific. Vague complaints read as whining. Specific failures read as honesty.

What to actually post (templates that work)

If staring at a blank text box freezes you up, use these as starting points. Don't copy them word for word. Adapt them to whatever you worked on today.

The daily update: "Day [X] of building [project name]. Today I [specific thing]. Tomorrow I'm tackling [next thing]. Biggest surprise: [something unexpected]."

The lesson learned: "I assumed [wrong thing] about [topic]. Turns out [right thing]. Cost me [time/money/frustration]. Sharing so you don't make the same mistake."

The before/after: Post a screenshot of something ugly you improved. People love seeing progress, especially when the "before" is rough.

The honest struggle: "Didn't work on [project] for 5 days. Life got in the way. Sat down tonight for 20 minutes just to get back in the groove. That's the whole update."

That last one is the most powerful format for beginners. It's honest, it normalizes inconsistency, and it quietly demonstrates the power of showing up even when you don't feel like it.

The consistency problem (and how to solve it)

The hardest part of building in public isn't the first post. It's post number 15. By then the novelty has worn off, you haven't gone viral, and it feels pointless.

This is where your work sessions become your content pipeline. If you're already tracking your side hustle sessions, you're generating content without extra effort. The notes you write at the end of each session are rough drafts for build-in-public posts.

Here's a simple system: every time you finish a work session, spend 60 seconds turning your session notes into a post. Not a polished essay. Just a few sentences about what you did and what's next. Schedule it or post it right then.

That's one post per work session. If you work on your side project three times a week, that's three posts a week. More than enough.

What not to do

A few mistakes that will tank your build-in-public efforts fast:

Don't fake it. Inflating numbers, exaggerating progress, or pretending things are going better than they are will catch up with you. The whole point is honesty.

Don't only share wins. A feed full of "shipped this!" and "launched that!" with no struggles reads as performative. The struggles are what make people root for you.

Don't compare your day 1 to someone else's day 1,000. That person posting revenue screenshots started with nothing too. You're seeing their highlight reel, not their early days of talking to nobody.

Don't overthink it. Your post doesn't need to be profound. "Worked on my side project for 30 minutes today. Small progress but I showed up" is a perfectly valid update. The 5-minute habit approach applies to content too: done beats perfect.

The compound effect of showing up

Anne-Laure Le Cunff, who runs Ness Labs and has built a significant audience through building in public, describes it as "thinking in public." You're not performing. You're processing out loud. And when you do that consistently, a few things happen.

First, you attract people who care about the same problems you're solving. These become your early users, your beta testers, your first customers.

Second, you build a record of your own progress. On days when you feel like you're going nowhere, you can scroll back and see how far you've come. That's worth more than any productivity hack.

Third, you get better at communicating what you're building. This pays off when you eventually need to write a landing page, pitch an investor, or explain your product to a friend. The reps add up.

Start today, not Monday

If you've read this far, you're interested. Don't file this away for "someday." Open your platform of choice and write one sentence about what you're working on right now. It can be messy. It can be boring. It just has to be real.

Building in public isn't about having an audience. It's about creating accountability for yourself and connecting with people who get what you're going through. The audience is a side effect.

You don't need to be impressive. You just need to show up. And if you want help remembering where you left off so you always have something to post about, Session Stacker was literally built for that.

Now go post something. Even if nobody sees it yet.