BuildTrail - Track Your Startup Journey and Build in Public

BuildTrail
Get Started
For founders building in public

Document the journey.
Not just the launch.

Log milestones, product updates, and revenue in one place. Share the whole story as a public page.

Start your journey

$0 to start · Free forever for 1 project

Northstar

Building in public since Jan 2026

MRR

$4,200

Today

Launched v2.0

Completely rewritten the dashboard for speed.

Last Week

Crossed $4K MRR

The Journey

From first idea to real growth.

BuildTrail adapts to every stage of your company. Your dashboard and public page evolve as you make progress.

01

Discovery

Research and validate the idea worth building.

Ideas board

Capture everything before you build. Weigh trade-offs. Park what doesn't fit.

1 committed2 validating1 parked
+ New idea

BuildTrail — Founders Journal & Public Roadmap

Updated 2 days ago · Discovery

Committed

Problem: Founders lack a single calm place to document their journey from initial concept to revenue while sharing progress with early supporters.

Pros
  • +High organic reach & audience buy-in
  • + Natural SEO through public changelog
Cons / Risks
  • - Requires consistent updates from founder
5 customer validation conversations logged
Micro-SaaS Changelog Widget
Validating

Problem: Founders don't want to maintain separate changelog micro-sites.

02

Building

Ship your MVP and track features as they go live.

BuildTrail — Founders Journal
Phase: Building

Build board

Track what you're shipping now, what's up next, and what's already live.

2 in progress1 upcoming4 shipped
+ New feature

Stripe Revenue & Webhooks

Updated today

In Progress
This week's focus

Verify webhook signatures & sync MRR cache

Shipping

Stripe webhook signature validation
Real-time MRR calculation engine
-
Dunning & failed invoice retries

Auth & Workspace Engine

Shipped 3 days ago

Shipped

Supabase magic links, Google OAuth, and automatic subpath slug routing.

What shipped

Magic links & Google OAuth login
Workspace isolation & member roles
Public journey view URL generator
03

Testing

Onboard real users and learn from their feedback.

Testing board

Onboard real users, fix bugs, test assumptions — prepare for launch.

PRIVATE BETA
Beta users
42
Waitlist
1,248
Open bugs
3
Feedback
24 sessions
Feedback sessions
Recent
Sarah J.Feature Request

“Would love to toggle dark mode on the public journey page.”

Elena R.Praise

“Setup took 2 minutes. Shared our first milestone on Twitter!”

Bugs & Hypotheses
2 tracked
Safari OAuth redirect loop
MedOpen
Image uploader > 5MB timeout
LowFixed
Hypothesis: Founders link X profilesValidated ✓
04

Launch

Work the checklist and prepare to go live.

Launch prep

Checklist, channels, and coming-soon narrative before going live.

Target launch: Nov 15, 2026

75%

checklist done

Launch checklist

Landing page live & SEO tags set
Product Hunt assets & maker comment
Launch announcement tweet drafted
Email waitlist broadcast scheduled
Launch channels
Product HuntP

Maker post ready

Twitter / X𝕏

Thread scheduled

Indie Hackers

Milestone draft

Waitlist

1,248 recipients

Launch narrative seed

“Building BuildTrail in public: how 42 beta users helped us build the calm founder workspace.”

05

Growth

Scale up and track your metrics and milestones.

Revenue & Growth

Real-time Stripe sync, customer retention, and MRR momentum.

STRIPE SYNC
Monthly Revenue+18%
$4,240

$50.8k ARR

Active Customers
212

Subscribers

Churn Rate
0.8%

Low churn

ARPU
$29.00

Per user

MRR Over Time

Monthly recurring revenue growth curve

MRR ($)
$4,240
Jan ($290)MarMayJun ($4,240)
Analytics

Real-time analytics to track your growth.

See your revenue, customers, and growth trends in one place. BuildTrail syncs your Stripe data automatically, so you can focus on building.

Monthly Recurring Revenue
$290
$3,480 ARR (Illustrative)
Active Customers
10
Total subscribers (Illustrative)
Churn Rate
0.0%
0 churned this month
Net Revenue
$290
Rolling 30 days
Avg. Revenue Per User
$29.00
ARPU
Failed Payments
0
Rolling 30 days

MRR Over Time

Monthly recurring revenue trend (Illustrative)

Revenue

Gross collected per week (Illustrative)

Customer Growth

Active customers over time (Illustrative)

Features

The work behind every launch.

From your first idea to recurring revenue, keep your progress, milestones, and metrics in one place.

Idea
Build
Test
Launch
Scale
Stage: Idea
Defining core problem & market...

Stage-aware journey

Your dashboard and public page adapt to your stage. Track progress from discovery to growth.

Product Release• Today
v2.0 Launched
Customer• Oct 12
First 100 Users
Beta• Sep 28
Public Beta Open

Celebrate milestones

Mark moments like first customer, $1K MRR, or product launch.

Weekly Digest
Mon 9:00 AM
Weekly Revenue+12%
$1,245
MonSun
🎉
100 Active Users
Milestone unlocked
Passed ✓

Weekly digest email

A clean Monday recap of your week — revenue, customers, and changelog.

S
Stripe Connected
Syncing live
Today
+$257.00
Subscription created
Founder Annual • 2m ago
+$199.00
Payment succeeded
Pro Monthly • 15m ago
+$29.00
Payment succeeded
Pro Monthly • 1h ago
+$29.00

Powered by Stripe

Connect once and pull a complete, accurate revenue history. No manual entry.

Acme Corp
buildtrail.app/acme
Oct 12 • Product Update

Public progress page

Get a beautiful, shareable page at buildtrail.app. No design skills needed.

Current MRR
$12,450
Customers
342+12

Real-time growth tracking

MRR, ARR, churn, and ARPU updated the moment transactions flow in.

Example

Your build page, ready to share.

Your metrics, milestones, and product updates, brought together in one public page.

buildtrail.app/alex_chen/cooklog
BuildTrail
Share
Building in Public
Co

CookLog

Recipe sharing platform for home cooks

by Alex Chen•@alex_chen•Day 127•Visit website
MRR

$2.4k

+18%
Users

847

+24%
Day

127

building

Milestones

5/6 completed

Launched MVP on Product Hunt

Nov 18, 2025

First paying customer

Dec 11, 2025

Reached 100 users

Jan 15

Hit $1K MRR

Jan 24

Featured on Indie Hackers

Feb 15

Reach $5K MRR

In progress

Recent Updates

4 entries
Mar 22
feature
Added recipe collections feature

Users can now organize their favorite recipes into custom collections for easier access and meal planning.

Mar 20
fix
Fixed mobile navigation bug

Resolved an issue where the bottom navigation bar would overlap with content on smaller screens.

Mar 18
improvement
Improved search speed by 3x

Optimized our database queries and added caching to make recipe searches feel instant.

Mar 12
feature
Dark mode support

Added a beautiful new dark theme that respects your system preferences.

Explore CookLog

Follow our milestones, metrics, and changelogs as we build and grow in the open.

Built withBuildTrailBuildTrail
Pricing

Plans that grow with your journey.

Start free. Upgrade when you need more room to build, track, and share.

Free

Everything you need to start building in public.

$0
  • 1 project
  • Public progress page
  • Unlimited milestones
  • Unlimited changelog
  • Manual metric updates
  • Shareable public link
Most Popular

Pro

For serious builders tracking real growth.

$9/mo
  • Everything in Free
  • Up to 3 projects
  • Stripe analytics for MRR, churn, and revenue
  • Custom project logos
  • Weekly digest emails
  • Remove BuildTrail branding

Founder

Your own brand, unlimited scale, and a say in the roadmap.

$19/mo
  • Everything in Pro
  • Unlimited projects
  • Connect your own custom domain
  • Early access to new features
  • Priority support

Your journey is worth sharing.

Keep track of what you're building, share your progress, and give people a reason to follow along.

Start building in public