My First Month Building in Public: From 0 to 500 Followers

The Leap into Transparency

One month ago, I embarked on a journey that terrified me: building in public. I had spent years working on projects behind closed doors, tweaking, refining, and hesitating to share until everything felt "ready." The result? Endless cycles of work with little feedback, no audience, and no accountability. This time, I decided to do the opposite. With my co-founder Marco, we launched Jack Co-Founder—an AI co-pilot for founders—and made a pact: we'd share everything. The wins, the losses, the metrics, the doubts. Everything.

The first month was a whirlwind. I went from 0 Twitter followers to 500. Our Beehiv newsletter accrued 200 subscribers. And perhaps most importantly, I learned more about product-market fit, audience building, and myself than I had in the previous year. Here's what happened.

The Strategy: Consistency Over Perfection

I adopted three core habits:

Daily Twitter Threads — Every morning, I posted a thread about something I learned, a tactic I tried, or a reflection on the journey.
Weekly dev.to Articles — I committed to one in-depth article per week, diving deeper into topics that threads couldn't fully explore.
Engagement Sprints — I spent 30 minutes, three times a day, replying to tweets and Reddit comments with genuine value—no promotion, just conversation.

The goal wasn't viral fame; it was to attract the right people: founders, indie hackers, and builders who cared about the same things we did.

Week 1: The Awkward Start

Day 1 was excruciating. I posted my first thread: "Day 1 of building Jack Co-Founder in public. Here's what we're building and why." It got 2 likes, one from Marco. I felt silly. But I kept going.

That week, I wrote my first dev.to article: "6 Ways to Automate Your SaaS Marketing." It was a compilation of tactics I'd used in previous ventures. I published it and refreshed the page every five minutes. For the first 24 hours, it had 17 views. I almost quit.

But something else happened: I started engaging. I left comments on r/SaaS and r/startups, answering questions about marketing automation. I replied to tweets from creators like @arvidkahl and @tibo_maker with thoughtful observations. Slowly, people started recognizing my name.

By the end of Week 1, I had 85 Twitter followers and 12 newsletter subscribers. The article had 400 views. Not viral, but it was momentum.

Week 2: The First Breakthrough

The breakthrough came from an unexpected place: Reddit. I'd been commenting on a thread about "Marketing without a budget" and shared a specific example of how we used AI agents to automate Twitter engagement. Someone asked for more details, so I wrote a quick follow-up post and shared the link.

That comment sparked a conversation that got me 30 new Twitter followers in one day. A few people subscribed to the newsletter. The dev.to article from Week 1 started getting traction—someone shared it on Hacker News, and it hit 2,000 views overnight.

The lesson: value-first interactions build trust. I never promoted Jack Co-Founder in those comments. I just answered questions. The curiosity came naturally.

Week 3: Systems and Scale

With a small but engaged audience, I focused on systems. I set up a content calendar: Tuesday for Twitter threads, Thursday for dev.to articles, Friday for newsletter rounds. I batch-recorded short video updates for LinkedIn. I automated what I could—scheduling tweets with Buffer, using AI to draft article outlines.

I also started tracking everything: follower growth, newsletter signups, website traffic. I created a simple spreadsheet and shared it publicly on Twitter. Transparency, I realized, is a two-way street; I'm open with my audience, and they respond with feedback and support.

That week, I hit 300 Twitter followers. The newsletter passed 100 subscribers. My dev.to article from Week 2—"Reddit Marketing Guide for SaaS 2026"—became my first high-performer, with 5,000 views and counting.

Week 4: Compound Growth

By the final week, everything started compounding. Old articles kept getting traffic. Twitter threads I'd written weeks earlier were still being retweeted. I received my first "I've been following your journey since day one" message—a founder who found me through a Reddit comment and had been reading ever since.

I also faced challenges. I published an article that flopped (under 300 views). I got a few critical replies. I experienced imposter syndrome. But building in public forces you to confront those feelings. You can't hide; you have to talk about them. So I wrote a thread aboutFailure and what it taught me. That thread became one of my most-engaged posts.

The numbers at the end of 30 days:

Twitter: 0 → 500 followers
Beehiv newsletter: 0 → 200 subscribers
dev.to: 3 articles published, 10,000+ total views
Reddit karma: +2,000
Website visits: 1,500+

But the numbers aren't the real win. The win is the network. I've connected with dozens of founders, exchanged ideas, and even got early interest from potential beta users for Jack Co-Founder.

What Worked (And What Didn't)

What worked:

Consistency over virality. Showing up daily built a habit and an audience.
Engagement without asking. Comments and replies that provided value first built trust that led to organic interest.
Transparency about struggles. Sharing failures was disarming and relatable.
Cross-promotion. Twitter promoted dev.to, dev.to promoted newsletter, newsletter aggregated everything.

What didn't:

LinkedIn. I posted a few times but got minimal engagement. The audience there might not align with the AI/marketing niche I'm targeting. I'm putting LinkedIn on the back burner.
Self-promotion in comments. When I tried to subtly plug Jack Co-Founder, I got crickets. Pure value-only worked.
Perfectionism. I spent too long editing my first article. I learned to ship "good enough" and improve based on feedback.

The CTA That Actually Works

Every piece of content ends with a soft CTA. For dev.to articles, I link to my Beehiv newsletter. For Twitter threads, I invite people to follow. For Reddit comments, I never include a CTA—just the value. The result? Newsletter signups have been my highest-converting CTA, with a 2% conversion rate from article readers.

If you're building something—a product, a brand, a community—consider building in public. It's not about becoming an influencer; it's about creating a feedback loop that makes you better at what you do. The accountability forces you to ship. The community provides support. The transparency builds trust.

Ready to follow the journey? Subscribe to my Beehiv newsletter for weekly AI marketing insights → https://jacks-newsletter-0adf2e.beehiiv.com/

Jack Co-Founder is an AI co-pilot for founders, built by Marco and Jack. We're documenting the journey from zero to product-market fit. Follow along.