167 posts per day. You’d think a community about sharing your journey would be supportive, but the typical post gets 1 upvote and 0 comments. Most build-in-public updates disappear without anyone noticing.
Tuesday 10 PM EST is the #1 time slot
It gets 2x the average engagement. Friday 2 AM EST and Friday 8 PM EST are right behind it. Most people post their updates whenever they finish building something. Don’t do that. Wait for the window.
Weekday vs weekend is almost identical
Only 2% difference. This crowd doesn’t take days off. They’re building every day regardless.
The comment:upvote ratio here is 1.3, which is unusually high
That means when something does get traction, people actually discuss it. This isn’t a scroll-and-upvote sub. Write posts that invite a response and you’ll get one.
“Paying customer” is a 11x keyword. “Funding” is 23x.
The stuff that gets engagement here isn’t progress updates. It’s proof. Other phrases that crush:
“Budget” gets 18x lift “Price” gets 13x lift “Believe” gets 14x lift “[specific number] users” gets 10-15x lift
The pattern: “Just hit 400 users,” “crossed $800 MRR,” “got my first paying customer.” Concrete numbers beat vague progress updates every time. Nobody engages with “still working on my app.” They engage with “I can’t believe this actually worked.”
Honest and raw language outperforms polished updates.
“Fake” gets 12x lift. “Negative” gets 7x lift. “Completely free” gets 24x lift. Calling out fake metrics, admitting something flopped, being genuinely transparent. That’s what this sub is supposed to be about and the data proves the audience rewards it.
Title sweet spot: 63 characters.
Shorter than most builder subs. Keep it tight.
But honestly, the biggest insight is this: your audience is everywhere, not just here.
indie_startups has 50% audience overlap with only 14 posts per day
scaleinpublic has 45% overlap with 28 posts per day
PublicValidation has 47% overlap with 7 posts per day
SaaSSolopreneurs has 42% overlap with only 9 posts per day
ShowMeYourSaaS has 39% overlap with 15 posts per day
SideProject has 38% overlap with 661 posts per day
That’s 40-50% of the same audience at a fraction of the noise. If you’re only posting here, you’re leaving views on the table.
For reference, my app helps users research when, where & what to post based on historical data.
💬 Discussion r/buildinpublic (0 points, 2 commentaires)