What to post when you have nothing to show yet

Why "nothing to show" is usually not true

Most early work is invisible. A week of three customer calls, two pricing tests and one architecture decision leaves nothing to screenshot. The week still counted: you now know what you won't build.

"Nothing to show" usually means "nothing finished to show". Building in public is about the process, not the finished thing. Austin Kleon gives a chapter of Show Your Work! to this idea: the process matters more than the product.

Seeing small progress also helps you. Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer studied nearly 12,000 diary entries from 238 people on 26 project teams. Nothing did more for people's emotions and motivation at work than making progress in meaningful work, and even small wins counted (Harvard Business Review, 2011). The study was about employees, but the lesson carries over: writing a small step down is how you notice it.

Did you decide something today? Talk to someone? Learn something? Rule something out? One yes is enough for a post.

14 things you can post

Every example below is invented. Swap in your own day.

1. A decision. What you picked, what you dropped, why. Example: "V1 is web only. The mobile app waits until we have 100 users."
2. A conversation. What you learned, not who you met. Example: "Talked to three dentists. All three still chase cancelled appointments by phone."
3. A research finding. Something you read, counted or compared. Example: "Looked at the sign-up screens of 12 similar apps. 9 ask for a phone number before an email."
4. A dead end. A path you tried and closed. Example: "Tried per-seat pricing. It makes no sense for two-person teams, so it's gone."
5. A failed experiment. Hypothesis, result, decision. Example: "The new landing page headline didn't move sign-ups in three days. Reverting."
6. Something you learned. Example: "Read up on sales tax for digital products. Two steps longer than I thought, so the timeline moves."
7. A small ship. Example: "Cut the sign-up form from 5 fields to 2."
8. Before and after. Example: "Yesterday's and today's paper sketch of the home screen, side by side."
9. A real question. One whose answer you will use. Example: "Freelancers who invoice from a spreadsheet: what eats most of your time at month end?"
10. What you're not doing. Focus is a decision too. Example: "This week is onboarding only. No new features."
11. A small, honest number. Example: "14 people on the waitlist. I know 11 of them. The real signal is the other 3."
12. How you work. Example: "I log every user call in one table: problem, today's workaround, how much it hurts."
13. A mistake and the fix. Example: "Yesterday's update broke password reset emails. Caught it four hours later, fixed it, added a test."
14. A rejection. Example: "Offered two cafés a free pilot. Both said no: they won't change their till system."

With conversations, the useful part is facts, not compliments. Rob Fitzpatrick's The Mom Test is about avoiding biased feedback and asking questions that give real data. Put that data in the post: not "they loved it" but "all three do this by phone today".

A one-line formula, bad days included

Kleon's chapter title puts it plainly: "Share something small every day." (Austin Kleon). The smallest useful unit is one line:

What I did + what I saw + what's next.

Example: "Talked to two bakery owners. Both order flour over WhatsApp, not email. Next: test a WhatsApp reminder with one customer."

Two parts are fine if you saw nothing new. But "what I did" must be concrete: a name, a number or a file. If a stranger can learn something from the line, it did its job. This is also the shape of a post on Upvera: one line a day on your startup's page.

Some days nothing moves. The formula still works. Example: "No progress today. Stuck on a payment error since morning. First thing tomorrow I'm writing to the provider's support." That beats a made-up win, and gives tomorrow a starting point.

For a failed experiment, borrow the shape of a postmortem: what you tried, what you expected, what happened, why, what's next. The Google SRE book asks postmortems to find contributing causes without blaming any person or team, and to fix systems rather than people. Same here: don't blame the customer, your cofounder or the platform, and don't tear yourself down.

Example: "Experiment: I thought raising the price from $9 to $15 wouldn't hurt sign-ups. Two weeks, 40 visitors, 0 sign-ups. Small sample, clear direction. Back to $9. Next test: an annual plan."

Two traps. Don't draw big conclusions from small numbers; 40 visitors can't tell you "nobody cares about price". And don't spin a failure into a success story. "Here's what I learned" is enough.

Common mistakes

• Vague "grinding" posts. "Another 14-hour day at the desk" tells no one anything and leaves nothing to reply to. Write what you did, not how long you sat.
• Engagement bait. "Like this and I'll DM you the link", "comment YES if you agree". In 2017 Facebook announced it would demote posts that goad people into likes, shares and comments. Ask only questions whose answers you'll use.
• Sharing what isn't yours. Customer names, screenshots with email addresses, private messages posted without permission, a fight with your cofounder, details under an NDA. The European Commission counts any information about an identifiable living person as personal data, an email or IP address included. Crop, remove names, ask when in doubt.
• Only posting good days. A feed of wins reads like an ad, and you won't know what to write in a bad week.
• Waiting for something big. Three silent weeks and one long post is harder to write and to read than a line a day.

Limits

• If an NDA, client work or security keeps the content private, share how you work instead.
• Unpatched security holes, unannounced partnerships and other people's decisions stay off the feed.
• Posting is not the work. If writing takes more time than building, switch to weekly.
• Many posts get no reply, especially early. This list tells you what to write; it can't promise readers.

Questions

Do I have to post every day?

No. Daily makes the habit easier because each post can be tiny. If weekly suits you, keep it steady; a regular weekly update beats a daily log full of gaps. Skipping a day is fine. Making up progress is not.

What if someone copies my idea?

Don't share what you don't have to. Keep sensitive details private, like a data source, a customer's name or a deal in progress, and share the decision and the lesson. Most post types here work without giving away the core idea.

Should I keep going if nobody replies?

Early silence is normal. Your posts are also your own record: in three months you'll see what you did and why. If you want replies, end with a concrete question and post where the people who care actually read.

Should I share revenue or user numbers?

You don't have to. If you do, use the same definition every time; revenue one month and "active users" the next makes comparison impossible. An honest 14-person waitlist says more than an inflated figure.

How Upvera does it

Upvera is a progress platform where startup founders and independent builders share what they build every day. You add your startup, it gets a public page, and each day you post what you did in a line. If you connect GitHub, the App Store, Vercel or npm, pushes and releases are read from the source and added to your days automatically, so your line can cover what code doesn't show, like decisions and conversations. The community responds with Prime ("interesting, lift it") or Pass ("not for me"). If you connect an assistant such as Claude or ChatGPT through Upvera's MCP server, it can draft a post from your day; publishing always needs your approval. Add your startup and write today's line.

Sources

• Austin Kleon, Show Your Work!
• Teresa M. Amabile and Steven J. Kramer, The Power of Small Wins, Harvard Business Review (2011)
• Google SRE Book, Postmortem Culture
• Meta, News Feed FYI: Fighting Engagement Bait on Facebook (2017)
• Rob Fitzpatrick, The Mom Test
• European Commission, What is personal data?