In the modern SaaS landscape, the product is no longer the only moat. As AI makes it easier than ever to build software, the real differentiator has shifted toward distribution and trust. Enter the build in public strategy—a framework where founders share their journey, failures, and technical milestones in real-time to build an audience before they even have a polished product. This movement isn't just about transparency; it’s a high-leverage marketing engine that creates a steady stream of user acquisition and defensible social proof.
Consider the story of Yasser, the founder of Chatbase, who scaled his application from 0 to $1 million in ARR in just 117 days. Most impressively, he started with only 16 followers on X. By leveraging a specific playbook of founder-led growth and strategic storytelling, he transitioned from a university student to the head of a $7M ARR company. This article breaks down the exact framework you can use to replicate that success, from surviving the "consistency trap" to scaling your personal brand into a $100M engine.
The Consistency Trap: Why You Must Practice in Public
The biggest mistake new founders make when trying to build in public is expecting immediate virality. They post three updates, see zero engagement, and conclude that the strategy doesn't work. In reality, the first two to three months of posting are rarely about the views—they are about practicing in public. You are learning the voice of your brand, understanding what resonates with your niche, and building a searchable history of your work. Many founders use Stormy AI for influencer vetting and fake follower detection during this research phase to see which voices are actually driving the conversation in their industry.
During this phase, consistency is your only metric. You are establishing a "proof of work" that serves as a foundation for when you eventually do go viral. Yasser’s first viral tweet wasn't an accident; it was his third tweet ever, but it was preceded by a deep understanding of the AI community's interests. He focused on minimizing the time to the 'aha' moment in his demos, showing exactly what he built within the first 20 seconds. If you aren't posting daily, you aren't giving the algorithm enough data to help you find your audience.
Content Pillars for Founders: Avoiding the 'Boring' Label
To succeed in personal branding for founders, you must move beyond simple status updates. If your feed is nothing but "we just fixed a bug," you will lose your audience's interest. A robust social media storytelling for business strategy requires three distinct content pillars:
- Personal Storytelling: Share your "why." Why did you drop out of school? Why did you leave your FAANG internship? People connect with humans, not corporations.
- Controversial/Strong Takes: Don't be afraid to share what you actually believe about your industry. Polarizing content creates conversation and forces people to take a side, which drives engagement.
- Technical 'How-I-Built-It': Share your stack. Whether you are using Supabase for your database or Vercel for hosting, transparency about your tools invites other builders into your ecosystem.
To find the right niche to talk to, many modern founders use Stormy's AI search to discover which creators and influencers are already leading the conversation in their space across TikTok, YouTube, and LinkedIn. By identifying the right communities, you can tailor your content pillars to provide the most value to those specific audiences.
Video vs. Text: The Competitive Advantage in 2024
While text-based updates on LinkedIn and X are the standard, video is currently the highest-leverage medium for engagement. Very few founders are comfortable enough to get in front of a camera and demo their product or share a thought. This creates a massive gap for those willing to do it. Short-form video allows your personality to shine through in a way that 280 characters cannot.
When Yasser launched his viral demo, he utilized a streaming chat interface that was visually familiar to ChatGPT users. This visual familiarity, combined with a quick video demonstration, allowed users to instantly understand the product's value. If you are building a SaaS, your video content should focus on UGC-style demos—fast-paced, raw, and value-driven. This is particularly effective for mobile app marketing and app install campaigns where seeing the UI in motion is critical.
Framing Feature Updates as New Launches
One of the most effective SaaS marketing strategies is to stop treating product improvements as minor updates. Instead, re-contextualize every significant feature as a "new launch." Most of your potential customers missed your initial launch. By framing a new feature—like adding OpenAI's latest models or a new Stripe billing integration—as a major event, you give yourself permission to go viral all over again.
This strategy also involves being creative with outreach. Yasser famously created custom AI agents for books and influencers like Paul Graham and Naval. He didn't just tell people about his product; he showed them. To scale this kind of personalized outreach, you can use Stormy's AI outreach tools to generate hyper-personalized emails and follow-ups to influencers, ensuring your "new launch" gets the eyeballs it deserves without manual 24/7 labor.
The Solopreneur Mindset: Transitioning to $100M ARR
Many founders fall into the "Indie Hacker" trap—aiming for $10k a month to live a comfortable lifestyle. While that's a valid starting point, the truly successful founders eventually shift their mindset to shoot for the stars. This means moving from a simple "MVP" to a robust, scalable company. For Yasser, this meant moving past the "ChatGPT wrapper" criticism by building a deep feature set at Indie Hackers speed but with enterprise ambition.
Scaling requires moving beyond manual processes. As your user base grows, you need tools to track performance and manage relationships. Managing these connections manually is impossible, which is why a creator CRM from Stormy is essential for tracking which influencer partnerships are actually driving revenue. Using Stormy's post tracking allows you to monitor how your brand mentions are performing across social platforms, giving you the data needed to transition from a solo builder to a dominant market player.
Conclusion: Your Build-in-Public Playbook
Building in public is not a one-time event; it is a compounding asset. By staying consistent for the first 90 days, diversifying your content pillars, and leveraging video, you create a founder brand that acts as a magnet for users and talent. Remember that you don't need a massive audience to start—you only need to start. As seen with Chatbase, a single well-structured demo can spark a viral loop that leads to millions in revenue.
Ready to start your own founder-led growth journey? Use Stormy AI to find the right creators to amplify your story, vet them for authenticity and engagement quality, and automate your outreach so you can focus on building a product worth talking about. The next $100M bootstrapped company is being built in public right now—it might as well be yours.