Post Bridge crossed 1,000 paying makers this month. Since I've shared everything else in public, here are the numbers and the mistakes, unedited.

The numbers

• 1,043 paying accounts
• ~$27k MRR, growing about 9% month over month
• 4.1% monthly churn (down from a scary 7% earlier this year)
• 0 employees — still just me, plus a very patient contractor for support on weekends

None of that is hockey-stick. It's a slow, boring, compounding line — which is exactly the kind of business one person can actually run without burning out.

Mistake #1: the feature nobody used

I spent three weeks building a "content ideas" generator — a little panel that suggested things to post. I was sure it was the future. Usage after launch: about 2%. It turns out people who use a posting tool already know what they want to say; they just want it out the door. I quietly retired it and felt dumb for a week.

Mistake #2: ignoring the boring thing

The feature that actually moved retention was the least glamorous one imaginable: remembered account selections. Pre-selecting the accounts you always post to shaved maybe eight seconds off each post. That's nothing — except it's eight seconds times every post times every day, and it made the tool feel like it knew you. Retention on users who had it turned on was measurably higher. Boring wins.

The flashy feature got a launch tweet. The boring one paid my rent.

Mistake #3: pricing too low, for too long

I launched at $9/mo because I was scared no one would pay. When I finally raised to $19–$29, signups didn't drop — and the people who joined were more serious and churned less. Underpricing wasn't humble; it was attracting the wrong users and starving the business that had to support them.

What building in public actually did

The honest answer: it was my entire marketing budget. I don't run ads. Every screenshot of a half-finished feature, every "shipped this today," every MRR update — those posts were the funnel, and I published them with the tool itself. If you're a solo founder wondering whether to build in public: the compounding audience is real, and the accountability is worth as much as the reach.

What's next

Analytics just shipped, so people can finally see which platform is worth their time. After that: better bulk workflows for the video-heavy creators, who are quietly my stickiest cohort. Same rule as always — does it make the 60-second path faster, or is it in the way?

Thanks for building this with me, whether you're user #12 or #1,043. Here's the thing itself.

— Jack