Build in public.
Get paid for it.
OpenBuild gives indie developers a place to ship in the open, build an audience, and turn that into sustainable income.
One big feature before v2. What matters most to you?
128 votes
newJust released Gather, a bookmark manager I've been prototyping. All backers have access.
Why we're keeping the free tier
Ran the numbers. Conversion from free to paid is 4.2% and growing. Removing the free tier would kill the funnel for a small short-term bump.
Week 12. Rewrote the file picker. Old one was fine on desktop but unusable on tablets. Took longer than expected but it's way better now.
Why build in public
Most devs treat building in public as a content strategy. It's more useful than that.
It's user research
Polls, decision journals, build logs. Each one is a conversation with the people using your product. You learn what matters before you spend three weeks building the wrong thing.
It's marketing
People share progress, not landing pages. When your process is visible, every update is something someone can stumble onto. You don't need a launch day if you never stop shipping.
Tools for the process, not just the output
Patreon was made for podcasters. GitHub Sponsors is a donate button. Neither was designed for people who ship products and iterate in public.
Build logs for sharing what you shipped, what broke, what's next.
Decision journals where you explain your thinking. Why you changed direction, what tradeoffs you made.
Roadmap voting so your users decide what you work on next.
Subscriptions with tiers. Backers get access to your tools, updates, and new releases. You get income you can plan around.
Early access so the people backing you try new things first.
Why people pay
They use the product
It's already part of their day. Paying keeps it alive and moving forward. Not charity. Closer to a subscription they actually want.
They want a say
Vote on what gets built next. Not +1 on a feature request that goes nowhere. Actual input from the people using the thing.
They trust the maker
You don't evaluate every release. You trust the pattern. This person makes things that work for me, so I'll keep paying attention.
Get early access
We're onboarding creators one at a time.