Best Platforms to Build in Public: 5 Options for Founders

The short answer

For SaaS founders seeking a dedicated community, Buildside is our recommendation for the best platform to build in public. Choose X for short public updates, LinkedIn for professional conversations, Indie Hackers for business discussions, or Reddit for feedback on a specific customer problem.

The deciding factor is who can help with your next decision. A reply from someone who uses your product can be more valuable than a widely liked announcement.

Best build-in-public platforms compared

Building in public means sharing your product’s progress, decisions, and lessons while you develop it. These five platforms suit different parts of that process.

• Buildside: build in public, SaaS progress and founder discovery. Check whether relevant customers participate.

• X (Twitter): Short updates and public conversations. Give new readers enough product context.

• LinkedIn: Professional audiences and business lessons. Connect updates to the reader’s work.

• Indie Hackers: Bootstrapping discussions and founder advice. Separate peer advice from customer evidence.

• Reddit: Questions within a specific niche. Follow each community’s promotion rules.

Buildside: best for sharing your SaaS journey

Buildside brings together founder profiles, SaaS products, public updates, and requests for beta testers. Visitors can browse profiles, products, posts, and beta requests without an account. Participating requires an account. Explore Buildside’s features.

That makes it a practical starting point if you want people to discover both your product and the founder behind it. Share a feature decision, explain what prompted it, and invite feedback from people facing a similar problem.

The limit is audience fit. If you sell software to restaurant managers, check whether those managers are present before relying on founder conversations to validate demand.

X: best for short updates and ongoing conversations

X suits founders who can explain an idea briefly and want to discuss it publicly. Threads connect multiple posts, letting you add context or continue an earlier update. X’s guide to threads.

Use that format for a screenshot, a decision, and a focused question. Explain what your product does before asking someone to assess a change; they may be seeing your work for the first time.

Choose X when people you want to reach already discuss relevant problems there.

LinkedIn: best for building in public with a professional audience

Consider LinkedIn when your product serves people in a specific job or industry. Frame updates around their work: what slows them down, what you changed, and what they can learn.

For longer updates, LinkedIn newsletters provide recurring articles that readers can subscribe to and receive notifications about. LinkedIn’s newsletter FAQ.

A useful post about simplifying an approval process gives the intended buyer something concrete to discuss. A generic announcement that you shipped another feature leaves more work for the reader.

Indie Hackers: best for bootstrapping discussions

Indie Hackers combines founder discussions, business stories, product listings, and a Build Board for public progress posts. Explore Indie Hackers.

It’s a sensible option for discussing pricing experiments, distribution attempts, or the choices involved in running an independent business. Bring a specific situation and explain what you’ve already tried.

Use the replies to develop questions and possible next steps. Advice from another founder still needs checking against your customers, constraints, and product.

Reddit: best for feedback within a specific niche

Consider Reddit when your question belongs in a community organized around the problem you’re solving.

Community rules matter: some prohibit promotional content, while others allow it within limits. Reddit also prohibits repetitive mass posting for exposure. Reddit’s community promotion guidance, spam policy.

Explain the problem, share a useful observation, and disclose your connection if you mention your product. Publish an update only where that format is welcome.

How to choose where to build in public

Before committing, read ten recent posts related to your product’s topic on each candidate platform. Look at the replies. Do people explain problems, question assumptions, or offer to try things?

Then choose one place and publish four useful updates:

1. The problem you’re investigating.

2. A decision and the reason behind it.

3. Something you tried and what happened.

4. A specific request for feedback.

For example, a founder building invoice software could ask: “Would you want overdue-payment reminders to go out automatically, or approve each one first? Here’s the draft screen.” That gives readers a decision they can weigh in on.

Afterward, review the conversations. Did someone identify a usability problem, agree to test, or explain why they wouldn’t buy? Use those outcomes to decide where to continue.

For help shaping those updates, read our guide to building in public.

Ready to start? Explore Buildside and publish one decision you’re working through, with enough context for another founder to help.

Frequently asked questions

A note from Uriel Bitton

I share practical lessons from building Buildside and learning alongside SaaS founders.

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