How to build in public with numbers people can check

The short answer

Decide what you will share before your first post. Mercury points out that building in public "does not require sharing everything", and names product decisions, milestones, lessons and mistakes among the things founders may share.

Then attach every number to a page other people can open. Our view: a screenshot asks people to trust you, while a public page that keeps every week lets them check you.

Plausible is one documented case. In its June 2022 recap the team wrote: "We regularly share our milestones, lessons learned, site traffic and more." About its early users it wrote: "All the early users came from these updates."

Step by step

1. Write down what stays private. You can leave revenue and customer details out and still build in public. On Proof of Traction a listed project shares its visitors and where they came from. Sign-ups, revenue and retention are outside what we see, so they are never shown.
2. Pick one number you can measure the same way every week. We like visitors as the first number because a project has them long before it has revenue. Proof of Traction ranks projects every week by visitors measured on each maker's own site; read how we count before you quote a figure.
3. Link a page instead of posting a screenshot. Your project page on Proof of Traction shows your measured visitors and the sources they came from, and a sealed week keeps its numbers. The badge on your own site shows this week's measured visitors and links to that page.
4. Post on the same day each week. Every Monday our week is reviewed and published with a seal, and sealed entries never change. That makes Monday a natural day for the update: last week's visitors, the change, and the top source.
5. Say where the visitors came from. A count tells people how many; the source tells them what worked. Project pages show traffic sources such as Google, X, Reddit, Hacker News and AI chats. They show the site a visit came from, not the post that sent it, so name the channel rather than a single post.
6. Keep the bad weeks in the record. A week that went down belongs to the story as much as one that went up. A sealed week keeps its numbers, so a drop stays visible next to the weeks around it instead of being quietly left out.

Where to post your updates

Post where your readers already spend time, then let the sources tell you whether the updates reach them. After a few weeks, a project page shows which channel sends visits and which does not. In week 45, X was the top source for 3 of the 11 ranked projects and direct for 7.

What we would do on X: one short post a week in the same shape, the number in the first line and the link to the project page at the end. Answer the replies under it, because a weekly post that turns into a conversation is easier to come back to than a bare number. Use the same shape on Bluesky, Reddit or a newsletter if that is where your readers are.

A worked example: week 45 on our board

Week 45 ran from 2 to 8 November 2026 and was sealed on 9 November after review: 11 projects ranked, 5 excluded, 717 visitors in total against 473 the week before. These three ranked projects had X as their top source:

Turn the sealed week into a post

Disclosure: Bangerkit and Talk First are made by the maker of Proof of Traction. They are listed and measured exactly like every other project; read who's behind it. Here is the weekly update Bangerkit could post from the record above, with every figure checkable on its project page:

Week 45 on Proof of Traction: 297 visitors, up 29.7% from 229.
X brought 208 of the week's visits (67.5%).
The week is sealed, so these numbers won't change: proofoftraction.com/p/bangerkit

Bangerkit's project page shows week 45 with a growth figure, +29.7%, because it had enough prior data. Talk First's page shows its week 45 without one, so a plain "112 visitors, up from 103" is the more honest post for it.

Common mistakes

• Posting numbers nobody can check. A self-reported figure in a post is a claim. A link to a page that measured it, and that keeps last week as it was, is evidence.
• Comparing a launch week with a normal week. A launch brings a spike. On our board, week-over-week growth appears only when a project has enough prior data. Apply the same care to the percentages in your own posts.
• Reading visitors as customers. Visitors are people who came to the site, not sign-ups or customers. Say so when you share the number.
• Switching the metric from week to week. Visitors one week and followers the next make the trend hard to read. Keep one number and add others beside it.
• Dropping the update after a bad week. The sealed week stays on your project page either way, so post it and say what you will try next.

Where Proof of Traction fits

It gives your build-in-public posts a number that someone else measured: visitors counted on your own site, ranked every week, with week-over-week growth when there is enough prior data and the traffic sources behind it.

Listing is free. An admin approves each project, and an approved project's page links to your site with a followed link. The site badge shows your visitor count. Read how it works, then submit your project.

Planning a launch as well? Read product launch marketing for indie projects and compare the best launch platforms for 2027.

Questions people ask

What does build in public mean?

According to Mercury, building in public "means sharing parts of your startup's journey openly as you go". That can be product decisions, milestones, lessons or mistakes; it does not have to be everything.

What should I share when I build in public?

Mercury names product decisions, milestones, lessons and mistakes. Plausible lists what it shares as "milestones, lessons learned, site traffic and more" in its own recap. Pick the parts you can keep sharing every week.

Do I have to share revenue to build in public?

No. According to Mercury, the approach "does not require sharing everything". Visitors are a number you can share without revenue, and on our board they are the only number a project shows.

How do I build an audience by building in public?

Post regular updates where your readers already are, and make each one useful on its own. One documented result: Plausible wrote that "All the early users came from these updates." Your results will differ, which is why it helps to show the source of every visit.

Does Proof of Traction show revenue or sign-ups?

No. We show visitors and where they came from. Sign-ups, revenue and retention are outside what we measure.