Building in Public on X: How We Schedule Founder Threads With Typefully
Our process for writing and scheduling build-in-public threads on X with Typefully: what we post, how we draft, when we schedule, and the rules that keep it honest.
AutoShort's founder posts about building the product on X: what shipped, what broke, what the numbers said. This post is the process behind those threads, and the tool we use to schedule them, Typefully. We are not going to quote engagement numbers, because we have not measured them carefully enough to be worth publishing. What we can share is a process that takes about an hour a week and has not burned us out.
Why build in public at all
Three reasons, in order of how much they matter to us. First, writing down what happened this week forces clarity: if we cannot explain a decision in a few sentences, it was probably not a good decision. Second, other founders and creators send useful feedback and bug reports when they can see what you are working on. Third, it is a slow, compounding way for people to hear about the product without paying for ads.
Note what is not on the list: going viral. Founder threads are a long game, and most posts get little reach. If you need results this month, this is the wrong channel.
Why Typefully
You can post threads from X directly. We use a scheduler for two practical reasons. Our team is in Vietnam and much of our audience is in the US and Europe, so the best posting hours are our evening or night; scheduling means we write in the daytime and the thread goes out at a sensible hour for readers. And drafting a thread is easier in a dedicated editor that shows where each post breaks, keeps drafts in one place and lets you come back to them the next morning with fresh eyes.
It also connects to the rest of our tooling. Claude Code can create drafts in Typefully, which means the founder can ask for a first draft of a weekly update from the week's merged pull requests and then rewrite it in his own voice.
What we post
- Weekly shipped list. Three to five things that changed in the product, each in one line, with the reason it changed.
- Numbers with their limits. A metric we measured, the sample size and what it does not prove. For example, our write-up on how users rated voices led with the caveat that the rating was for the whole video, not the voice.
- Mistakes. A bug that reached customers and how we fixed it. These get the most thoughtful replies.
- Short demos. A video made with the product, with what we would improve.
We do not post revenue screenshots or income claims, for us or for anyone using the product. They attract the wrong audience and they break the rules of the payment platform we sell through.
How we draft a thread
- Start from the evidence. A merged pull request, a chart, a customer message. If there is nothing concrete, there is no thread this week.
- Write the first post last. Draft the body, then write the opening line that makes someone stop scrolling. It should state the most surprising true thing in the thread.
- One idea per post. If a post needs “and” twice, split it.
- Keep the link out of the first post. Put the product link at the end, or in a reply, so the thread reads as a story rather than an ad.
- Read it on a phone using the preview before scheduling. Long words and numbers wrap badly.
Scheduling
We aim for two or three posts a week rather than one every day. Each goes out at a time when our readers are awake, and we try to be around for the first hour to answer replies, which matters more than the exact minute it is published. Typefully's queue makes this simple: set your preferred slots once, and new drafts drop into the next free one.
When a thread does better than usual, we do not rush out a sequel. We look at what was different (usually a clearer first line or a real number) and apply that to the next one.
A thread, start to finish
Here is the shape of a typical weekly update. Say the evidence is a pull request that fixes a duplicate-charge bug. The first post states the surprising part plainly: a button that looked harmless could create two videos for some customers and charge for both. The middle posts explain how we found it, what the fix was, and how many people it affected, with the number and where it came from. The last post says what we changed so it cannot happen again, and links to the product in a reply rather than in the thread.
Drafting that takes twenty minutes. Rewriting the first line usually takes another ten, and it is the ten minutes that matter.
Our rules
- Every number has a source we could show if asked.
- No engagement bait, no “like and repost to win”.
- Disclose relationships. If a post links to a tool we earn from, it says so next to the link, as this page does.
- The founder rewrites anything an AI drafted. A thread should sound like a person.
Is the free plan enough?
For us, yes, so far. Typefully's free plan caps how many posts you can publish through it each month, which fits a two-or-three-a-week cadence for one account. If you post daily, run several accounts or want detailed analytics, the paid plans are where those live; check Typefully's pricing for the current limits. Whatever you use, the tool matters much less than having something true to say every week.
Written by AutoShort Team