I grew my SaaS to $10K/month by posting on X

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I grew my SaaS to $10K/month by posting on X

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Dec 29, 2025

Over the past year, Rob Hallam has been furiously building in public on X/Twitter. He posts every day and has grown his app to over $10K/month. In this video, Rob breaks down his build in public playbook and how anyone can use the power of the internet to build their own successful saas.

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Follow Rob: https://x.com/robj3d3

Check out SuperX: https://superx.so/

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Chapters:

0:00 - Intro

1:19 - Who is Rob Hallam

2:00 - Overview of the app

2:30 - App analytics

3:33 - Rob’s background

4:34 - Breakthrough story

6:19 - How building in public changed Rob’s life

9:08 - The Build in Public Playbook (free download)

10:16 - Step-by-Step process for building an audience

15:49 - How SuperX works

17:16 - Tech stack

18:17 - Final advice

19:04 - Pat’s notes and reflections

This video is an educational case study of this founder’s experience. It is not financial advice and does not guarantee any income or results. Every business is different and your results may vary.

Chapters

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Transcript

Chapters

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No tools listed for this business.

I never in my wildest imaginations expect to get numbers like this

Meet Rob Hallam a solo developer you've probably seen all over X in the last few months

But what you might not know about Rob is that he wasn't always successful

He failed for years until he discovered one platform that changed everything

I built this entire business through sharing my story on X

Rob simply started posting on X sharing the wins the losses everything

And to his surprise it turned into followers users sales and ultimately a very successful

SaaS business

I went viral first and then got the followers second

Rob might be one of the best minds when it comes to building in public

So I asked him to come onto the channel to break down his story and how he went from

zero to 12 000 a month building on X and posting content

And in this video we'll dive into the insane opportunity of building in public right now

Rob's exact content system that he uses every day to grow on X and his step by step

playbook on how to build in public and get thousands of followers if he had to start

over from scratch today

Unlike what I thought was the case it isn't about luck

This is one that you can not miss

Let's dive in

I'm Pat Walls and this is Starter Story

What's up Rob

Welcome to the channel

Tell me about who you are what you built and what's your story

My name is Rob Hallam

I built SuperX which is a platform that helps you grow on X the right way

I launched it publicly four months ago

And since then we've gone from 1 000 to over 13 000 in monthly recurring revenue

now growing at 25 month over month

And the crazy thing is I built the entire business on X itself using SuperX to grow

SuperX

I'm living proof this system works because I've gone from zero to over 34 000 followers

in just over a year

And that's the playbook building in public that I'm excited to share with you today

Rob I'm super excited to talk about the build in public

You are one of the experts of build in public

I think I follow you on X

What you do is awesome

We're going to get all into that but I do want to understand what is this business

that you built

Is it a SaaS

Is it an app

Could you show me your business real quick and explain how it works

So SuperX is the only tool that helps you grow on X with Twitter the right way

We're the only platform that shows you which posts went viral why they worked and then

helps you create versions to go viral yourself

We're doing 13 000 a month right now in monthly recurring revenue entirely through 29 a month

month subscriptions

And we have about 450 active subscribers right

Okay cool

Super cool business

A lot of people watching the channel want to see that this is a real business that's

making over 10 000 a month

Could you show us some of the analytics Stripe or whatever you look at on a daily basis

So this is our Stripe dashboard

This is our MRR

The majority of it here

The rest is over on Lemon Squeezy

We recently migrated

You can see our net volume since we migrated about a month ago

The majority of our revenue is through subscriptions

So our trial rate right now is around actually about 30

This is adjusted because we recently migrated over from Stripe

We've got about 60 active trials right now

And our churn is close to about 30 as well

But we're trying to get it down right now

Since I started using SuperX properly back in about April you can see the majority of

my impressions have started to skyrocket

And since then I've been able to keep about 100 000 impressions a day

And this is where 95 of the traffic and most of our users have come from

Since I started posting about two and a half years ago I never in my wildest imaginations

expect to get numbers like this

And it's only really happened since I started following the data

Before that when I was posting randomly I was getting as you can see completely

inconsistent impressions

And now we're looking at about 100 000 impressions a day

All right cool

Thank you for sharing all that Rob sharing all those metrics being super transparent

about that

I love that

We're going to get all into the building public thing but I do have to understand

understand about your background

How do you get into building on X building apps and making money with an app online

What's your backstory

I went through the traditional route my entire life

I studied hard at school

Got a good degree computer science from a good university

And then I became a software engineer

And that was until my first employer laid me off

And with that I decided I was done with corporate

And that's what led me to start my journey on X back in early 2023

Over the next two and a half years I built and launched five products that made in total

a whopping zero dollars

And while it sucked it taught me three fundamental things

Firstly that distribution matters

Secondly that monetization matters from day one

And thirdly that you need to focus on building painkillers not vitamins

But the biggest thing of all of it was that through sharing the hard times along with

the wins I built trust within our community

I posted every single struggle and failure that I had along the way

And that is what led me to the breakthrough

Okay so the breakthrough you mentioned

This is one of the big reasons why I wanted to bring you on the channel Rob is this

whole idea of building in public

Obviously you hadn't created the SaaS yet

SuperX didn't even exist at this point

What was that breakthrough

Tell me that story

What happened there

After I had these five failures for me money at that point was becoming this thing that

was really really scarce

And I was getting really really anxious

I literally hadn't made any money in over a year

So I made this post and it shared all of my failures and it blew up

It got about 150 000 views on X

And with that came one comment that said I should start a development agency using my

skills

So with the momentum of that initial post I immediately announced I was starting this

agency

And I got my very very first 3 000 client from that initial viral post

From there it started to go really really well

And the wildest part of all of this was that all of these clients were coming through X

inbound to my DMs through my viral posts

I started to post more and more trying to get more and more clients and drive more and more

more revenue

So when I started to get these viral posts everything in my life kind of felt like it

was clicking together because I felt like what I'd seen others do in the past on X was

finally real and possible

In hindsight that vulnerability was what made it reach out to so many people because

so many people feel this way too

But I had no process to create this content to drive in these clients

So I built one

And soon enough I was using AI data and analytics to systematically create viral content on

And through that I was making the most money I've ever made in my entire life

And that is when I partnered with Thibaut who is the old co founder of TweetHunter

to build SuperX

He'd acquired the SuperX Chrome extension and I came on to build the SuperX web app

with all of my ideas merging the analytics and the process to build my dream X growth

tool

Okay so you realize the power of building public you build this sort of dev agency

around it which is amazing

Most people would probably stop there and be like wow this is like amazing money

And this is awesome

I get to travel the world and do this

But that wasn't enough for you

You wanted to take it to the next level

So what happened next

At the end of 2024 I had a few things going on

I had problems with the employee that I'd hired

I had a relationship that was breaking down and I realized that actually building products

for other people was completely unfulfilling

In January 2025 I made this New Year's resolution where I decided I'm going to start

vlogging

That was then when I posted this post that a lot of people now know me for

I shared how filming in public was like and this was while I was at the airport in Amsterdam

flying to Rio de Janeiro

And then when I landed in Rio de Janeiro I opened my phone and this post had over

million views

All of a sudden this was like another breakthrough another viral post

But the scale to which this went viral was beyond my craziest imaginations

And the timing of everything just made sense

I'd started vlogging

I closed down my agency

And this was also when I was starting to build SuperX

But those first seven months in reality were absolutely brutal

I got hospitalized in Guatemala with food poisoning

A few months later I got hospitalized again in Colombia

And all the time X kept changing their API all the time

So that was causing stability issues in SuperX

And every day I'd open my inbox and see tens of messages saying that SuperX was down

But I kept building and I kept posting

And I look back at this now and I realize that I was incredibly uncomfortably vulnerable

at many many times

But at the same time if I wasn't as vulnerable as I have been I don't think I would have

built the audience

I don't think I would have grown my SaaS to the numbers that we're doing now

Nowadays with AI there's so much slop content and people want to follow people

People want to follow stories

It's been this way always

So if you go on X and you share your story your personality honestly and vulnerably

that is how you build an audience in 2025

So those brutal seven months led up to the launch in July

I posted this very standard launch post that had a screen recording of what SuperX does

breakdown of what it does etc

I got 32 000 views

And on top of that it got 26 signups

So I set it down in front of my laptop

I took a selfie

I posted it on X

And that post got over 46 000 views I think

The funniest thing was that although that post wasn't advertising what SuperX was that

post drove way more signups than the initial launch post did

And thanks to that post we added 1 000 in monthly recurring revenue in just 24 hours

And I took that as a signal to just keep going

So I started using SuperX to grow SuperX

I used the systematic approach that I built into the product of SuperX to help grow us

on X

I'd finally systemized my content strategy

I found what was going viral

It built it

I posted it with my personality

Then I doubled down on the hits

And I killed what didn't work

All of it's organically through the strategy that I just talked about

You don't need followers to start

You need consistency a storyline and a system

Look this strategy of building in public is not for everyone

But if you're willing to put yourself out there and embrace the cringe the chances

of you building a successful product I think are going to be a lot higher

If Rob's story resonates with you well I've got something special that I think you

should check out

Inside Starter Story mode we go over these 17 distribution channels that successful founders

are using today

We source all this data from the hundreds of founders that we talk to through the YouTube

channel and through Starter Story

And just one of these 17 distribution channels is building in public

And we have a bunch of modules on how to build in public

And I want to give you all that for free

So if you click the link in the description right there you can access our entire build

in public modules going over not only Rob's but other build in public strategies that

are used by successful founders today building actual real businesses making real revenue

But this won't be free forever

As as part of the larger Starter Story mode accelerator if you've built stuff and you're ready

ready to take it to the next level and focus on distribution and getting attention and

building audience and getting customers then you're definitely going to want to check this

out

Just click the link below in the description

But again it's not going to be free forever

All right let's get back to the interview

All right

Well thanks for sharing that Rob

I think that's amazing

That's one of the real reasons I want to bring you on the channel is that I genuinely think

you are one of the best at building in public

I've been following you for a long time

So I think you have a lot to share

And I'd love you to actually share a little bit more

And I know a lot of people watching this want to build in public

They want to grow their followers

They know that having an audience is really really important in this age of A I

So my question to you would be if you had to start over right now with no audience

zero followers what would be your step by step process to build an audience like you

did

So step one is set your foundation before you post anything

Set up your profile with these three things

Make something friendly smile but post your actual face and don't change it often because

this is what people are going to associate with you

Then your bio

You want one clear sentence explaining what you're doing

And importantly this is what a lot of people miss out is your pinned post

You want your goal or your elevator pitch

So in my case it was left my job left my home to live on savings and try and build

my dream SaaS to 10k a month

You want that pinned at the top of your profile

This step is crucial

And this is why it's step one

When people see your content in the feed and they click on it and they go to your profile

they need to instantly understand what it is you're doing what your story is in order

for them to want to go and follow along

Step two is pick your goal and commit to it

What so many people try and do is just post on X post without intention

You need to pick one specific goal and then document the process of working toward it

This gives you consistency because people forget you

Otherwise because the internet it gives you a storyline because people follow stories

people follow journeys and it gives you authenticity because it gives you the opportunity

to through the journey share the ups and the downs

And it builds trust like crazy

Step three is the content loop

This is the framework that I use that changed everything for me

And it's saying that your content should be four types entertaining educational

inspirational and convincing

So that's like selling your product

But the key is that you don't post them randomly

You post them with intention following this loop

Start with something entertaining

This is the viral post that you're going for

You want to put something funny something relatable maybe something vulnerable

The fun tool launch something like that

This gets you engagement

This gets you warmed up in the algorithm

This gets you the attention

And then you follow up with the educational or the selling

Now that you have the attention you want to teach something give some free value or

pitch your product

But importantly from a place of goodwill

So you say for example here's how you grow on X with SuperX

And then the final part of the loop is to turn it inspirational

So at this point you've probably got loads of views

Maybe you've got a few sales followers

Take a screenshot of that post it

That itself will potentially go viral

But importantly if you want to have that impact you want to share what it means to you

This is why I left my job

Moments like this make it worth it

But write it from the heart

You want people to root for your journey authentically

And then once you're at the end of the loop rinse back to the start and repeat

This loop does three things

It builds trust through authenticity

It educates your audience so that they see the value that you bring

And it sells without being annoying

Step four is systemize what works

This is kind of like my secret sauce if you want to call it that

Don't guess what to post

Use data

Go to successful profiles in your niche

Analyze their top performing posts

So I use the SuperX Chrome extension for this

But you can use whatever is comfortable

And then identify the concept

Importantly the concept not the actual post that worked

So you want to take that concept not word for word and then make it in your own style

A real example in my case was I used SuperX to analyze what was going viral in my niche

I found the curse of the tweets and algorithm simulator were going viral

So I built those features in SuperX

I posted the dancing demo showing them off

And this worked

It was combining the proven viral concept with my personality

Step five double down on what works and kill what doesn't

By this point you're going to have some signal of what's working and what isn't

So you should be tracking every single post's performance

And then you want to find your patterns

So what format works best

For me in my case it was video

For you it might be something different

What style of posting resonates

And then what topics engage

So in my case it was feature releases and authentic moments

And then when you find what works make more of it

Double down on what works because the algorithm rewards consistency

And then importantly also this is a part that a lot of people forget

kill what doesn't even if it went viral

So in my case algorithm simulator went viral

but I killed it from SuperX because it was a feature that most people didn't even use

Step six is build real connections

This is the crux of it all

So far it feels very cold and calculated

But at the end of the day you want to be building real connections

like you build a real community in real life

I see a lot of my audience and followers as genuine friends

And they are genuine friends

I've met up with them as I've been traveling through the world

Because the important thing is that growth isn't just through viral posts

You shouldn't just be chasing virality

assuming that you actually want to build something real

You need to build a community through intentional engagement

What most people do wrong is they focus on quantity

So they use AI to spam replies under hundreds of posts

which is a huge problem on X

They'll say generic comments like

Ah so great

Oh wow great post

And at the end of the day they get no real connections built

But what actually works is you want to find people in your niche

in your community that you genuinely want to connect with and make friends with

And then reply with real value share your experience

share stories ask thoughtful questions

and stay consistent with the same people

Like building any friendship in real life

Show up daily be yourself not a robot

Finally step seven leverage what the platform wants

Right now X is pushing video

I don't know what it will be in the future

But video works really well because it keeps people on the platform longer

They're watching your video

So videos get more reach

This does change over time

So you need to pay attention and adapt

For me when I switched from text to video format

I got 10 times the reach of text posts

But the bottom line of all of this is that

unlike what I thought was the case it isn't about luck

It's about building trust through consistent storytelling

systemizing virality through data and analytics

and focusing on building intentional real friendships

If you do this you won't need paid ads

All right well thank you for sharing that amazing playbook

That is truly amazing

And I really do believe that anybody can build in public

It's not going to happen overnight but that was really great

So thanks for sharing that

I realize that we haven't really talked too much about the app that you've built

I think a lot of people watching might be curious about like

how does this app even work

Would you be able to give me a little bit of a demo of SuperX

and just show me what it does and how it works

When you first sign up to SuperX you land on the inspiration page

This is where we have custom generated daily inspiration

So none of these posts existed before

They were doing exactly what I said in my playbook

They take what's going viral right now

pull in your context and the concepts of virality

and make posts that will go viral for you

The real source of SuperX of course is the Chrome extension

So you can see here I've navigated to my profile

This works on any profile

You can see top posts easily like this

Sort them by impression likes etc

It gives you real data insights

I can see the activities

On estimate I'm earning through X

And here we can see Pat's as well

So you can see that Pat's put top posts of all time

We've got one here another here

and we can sort through his tweets really easily

And we can take the viral concepts from these tweets

and go and send them into SuperX

to help us actually write the content schedule it

But the feature I am the most excited about

is this feature that I just released which is SuperX Engage

which helps you step by step reply to posts in your community

from people who you're interested with

And this helps you actually craft

those intentional connections that I was talking about

You can reply on the posts in X through SuperX

and you can track your replies all in one place

Okay thank you for sharing that super cool tool

I'm also curious on a somewhat different note

is the tech stack behind this

You built all this yourself

What is your stack for building

and then also marketing and how the business runs

My philosophy is you pick one stack

learn it deeply and ignore all of the noise

because too many people spend way too much time nowadays

chasing new technologies instead of just shipping

My essential stack is for development

I use Next js Node js and Tailwind

For databases I use Sqlite

We use the X API of course

which costs about 2 000 to 3 000 a month

We use OpenAI and Anthropx Cloud Sonar API

which costs about 1 000 a month

We use AWS for our servers which is about 200 a month

Zillow's Cloud for vectorized embeddings

This lets us do semantic similarity search on tweets

tweets that costs about 200 a month as well

For my personal AI assisted coding

I use Cloud Code that costs about 200 a month

month I use Screen Studio for those head banging demos

that go viral that costs about 10 a month

Then Framer for the landing page

which costs about 10 a month

And Stripe for payments which of course is free

well excluding fees and PostHog for analytics

which I think is free

Okay cool

Thanks for sharing that super cool

The last question that we ask

everyone who comes onto the channel

if you could go back in time

to before you were building in public

maybe even before you had the SaaS

what would be your advice to young Rob

or your advice for anyone that's watching this

that wants to build SaaS and build in public like you

First thing I would say is breathe

Second I would say is do things with intention

not with emotion

Figure out what you want cut out all of the noise

and then do an insane amount of volume with intention

Fundamentally take care of yourself

And if you do all of these things

it's just a matter of time

Well thanks for coming onto the channel Rob

I think what you did is awesome

Thanks for sharing all the build in public

sauce that you have

I think people are going to really enjoy this

If you like this video if you're watching this

please leave a comment

If you want to see Rob come back on the channel

and go deeper into building public

I'd love to have him back on

But thanks for coming on Rob

Appreciate you Pat

Thank you

I want to thank Rob again for coming onto the channel

Look I know that the whole build in public thing

may not be the sexiest growth strategy in the world

I know that a lot of people watching this

might be thinking

well I don't really want to go and share everything

about my life online

But if I were to give advice for someone

who's just starting out

who wants to build something build stuff online

this is the number one thing that I have people do

Share what you're doing online

document what you're doing

and share your story in this age of AI

where any sort of app or video or AI slop

all this stuff can be created out of thin air

What's the thing that's actually going to last

Well it's audience it's distribution

it's real human connection

And for bootstrappers

people who are building side projects

people who are building stuff online

this may be one of the most important videos

you've ever watched

I love building public

It's something I've done for a really long time

I think this is a really important video

and I hope you enjoyed it

If you're ready to build something

check out Starter Story Build

I'll put a link in the description for Starter Story Build

where you can come up with your idea

build it and launch it in just a matter of weeks

And then of course focus on the distribution

All right guys thank you guys for watching it

That's it for this episode

I hope you enjoyed it

We'll see you in the next one

Peace

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