#BuildInPublic isn't just a hashtag anymore — it's a growth strategy. Founders like Pieter Levels and Danny Postma proved that sharing revenue numbers publicly generates trust, followers, and customers. But right now, everyone is doing it manually: screenshots of Stripe dashboards, cropped Plausible charts, or hand-updated Notion pages.
Baremetrics Open Startups pioneered public dashboards but charges $58-208/month as part of their full analytics suite. If you just want to show MRR, user count, and growth rate on a nice-looking page, you're either paying enterprise prices or building from scratch.
A focused tool that connects to Stripe, generates a beautiful public dashboard, and auto-updates would be perfect for the thousands of indie founders who treat transparency as marketing.
💰 Revenue Blueprint
Three-tier value ladder to monetize from day one
Create a public metrics page. Update numbers manually. Beautiful templates. Shareable link.
Connect Stripe for auto-updating MRR, customers, churn. Custom branding. Embeddable widget for your site.
Multiple data sources (Stripe + Plausible/Fathom + custom). Milestone announcements. Social sharing automation.
Why Now?
The build-in-public movement is at peak momentum. X (Twitter) algorithm rewards transparency posts. More founders are going independent. The tools haven't caught up — Baremetrics is the only real option and it's expensive and bloated.
📊 Market Evidence
The Market Gap
Baremetrics Open Startups: expensive ($58+/mo), overkill. Manual updates: tedious, inconsistent. Nobody offers a $19/mo auto-updating public dashboard focused purely on the build-in-public use case. The market is small but extremely engaged and vocal.
🏆 Competitor Landscape
How existing players stack up in this market
| Competitor | Pricing | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Baremetrics Open Startups | $50-500/mo (as part of Baremetrics) | Revenue metrics, expensive parent product |
| Plausible | $9-19/mo | Privacy-focused analytics, public dashboards |
| Fathom | $14-44/mo | Simple analytics with shareable dashboards |
| Panelbear | Free / $9+/mo | Website analytics |
| Manual Notion/Twitter | Free | DIY approach, tedious but common |
Revenue metrics, expensive parent product
Privacy-focused analytics, public dashboards
Simple analytics with shareable dashboards
Website analytics
DIY approach, tedious but common
Launch Strategy
Build it, use it for your own product (inception!). Share your dashboard on Twitter/X with the #buildinpublic tag. The product IS the marketing. Feature other founders' dashboards for social proof. Low customer acquisition cost because the audience self-identifies. Target Indie Hackers and WIP.co communities.
🛠️ Recommended Tech Stack
Suggested tools and technologies to build this idea
Why this stack: Stripe API pulls real MRR and revenue data. Supabase stores metric snapshots over time. Recharts renders beautiful public-facing metric charts. Vercel ISR keeps dashboards fast.
Strengths
- ✓Build-in-public movement growing
- ✓Weekend project
- ✓Could go viral in indie community
Risks
- ⚠Small TAM
- ⚠May be feature not product
Score Breakdown
Good market signals with room for growth
Market (20%) + Revenue (20%) + Trend (15%) + Competition (15%) + Build (15%) + Pricing (15%)
Some tools exist (Baremetrics Open Startups, indie tools)
Limited indie revenue proof; mostly features of bigger tools
Build-in-public movement growing on X/IndieHackers
Baremetrics expensive; manual dashboards common
Weekend project; connect Stripe, display metrics
$19-49/mo likely; willingness to pay uncertain
🚀 Start Building
Copy a prompt into your favorite AI coding tool and start building this idea right now.
Build a SaaS product called "Build-in-Public Dashboard". ## Product Overview Public dashboard showing your SaaS metrics (MRR, users, churn). Auto-updates, shareable. ## Problem Founders want to share metrics publicly but manual updates are tedious ## Solution Connect Stripe, auto-generate beautiful public metrics page ## Target Audience Indie hackers, solo founders, build-in-public community ## Tech Stack - Next.js 15 (App Router) with TypeScript - Tailwind CSS v4 for styling - Supabase for auth, database, and storage - Vercel for deployment - shadcn/ui for UI components - Framer Motion for animations ## MVP Features to Build 1. Landing page with clear value proposition 2. User authentication (sign up, sign in, forgot password) 3. Core product functionality based on the solution above 4. Dashboard for users to manage their data 5. Pricing page with at least 2 tiers (free + paid) 6. Basic settings/profile page ## Known Competitors Baremetrics Open Startups, Plausible, Fathom, Panelbear, Manual Notion/Twitter ## Key Risks to Address Small TAM May be feature not product ## Deployment 1. Set up Supabase project and configure environment variables 2. Deploy to Vercel with `npx vercel --prod` 3. Set up custom domain 4. Configure Supabase RLS policies for security ## Instructions Start by creating the project structure, then build the landing page first. Use server components where possible. Make it mobile-responsive from the start. Focus on getting the core value loop working before adding polish.