How I Used Twitter to Hit $10K/Month

I never in my wildest imagination expected to get numbers like this.

Meet Rob Hallum, 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: X.

I built this entire business through sharing my story on X.

Rob started posting on X, sharing the wins, the losses, everything. To his surprise, it turned into followers, users, sales, and ultimately a 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 on the channel to break down his story and how he went from $0 to $12,000 a month building on X and posting content. In this video, we'll dive into the insane opportunity of building in public right now, Rob's exact content system, and his step-by-step playbook on how to build in public and get thousands of followers if he had to start over today.

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

This is one you cannot 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 Hallum. 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. The crazy thing is I built the entire business on X itself, using SuperX to grow SuperX. I'm living proof the 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 building in public. You are one of the experts at it. We're going to get into that, but I do want to understand what this business is. Is it a SaaS? Is it an app? Could you show me your business real quick and explain how it works?

SuperX is the only tool that helps you grow on X 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/month subscriptions and we have about 450 active subscribers.

Okay, cool. 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?

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. Our trial rate is around 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. Since I started using SuperX properly back in about April, you can see my impressions have started to skyrocket. Since then, I've been able to keep about 100,000 impressions a day. This is where 95% of the traffic and most of our users have come from. Before that, when I was posting randomly, I was getting completely inconsistent impressions. Now we're looking at about 100,000 impressions a day.

All right, cool. Thank you for sharing all that, Rob. We're going to get into the build in public thing, but I do have to understand your background. How did 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, got a computer science degree from a good university, and then became a software engineer. That was until my first employer laid me off. 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 a whopping zero dollars. While it sucked, it taught me three fundamental things: distribution matters, monetization matters from day one, and you need to focus on building painkillers, not vitamins. The biggest thing was that through sharing the hard times along with the wins, I built trust within the community. I posted every struggle and failure along the way. And that is what led me to the breakthrough.

Okay. So the breakthrough you mentioned is one of the big reasons why I wanted to bring you on the channel. 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 five failures, money was becoming really scarce and I was getting anxious. I literally hadn't made any money in over a year. So I made this post and shared all of my failures and it blew up. It got about 150,000 views on X. And with that came one comment saying I should start a development agency using my skills. With the momentum of that post, I announced I was starting an agency and got my first $3,000 client from that viral post. From there it went really well. The wildest part was that clients were coming inbound through X DMs. I started to post more and more to drive revenue. When I started to get these viral posts, everything in my life felt like it was clicking together. In hindsight, that vulnerability made it resonate because so many people feel that way. But I had no process to create content to drive clients. So I built one. Soon enough I was using AI data and analytics to systematically create viral content on X. Through that I was making the most money I'd ever made. That's when I partnered with Tibo, the old co-founder of Tweet Hunter, to build SuperX. He'd acquired the SuperX Chrome extension, and I came on to build the SuperX web app with my ideas, merging analytics with the process to build my dream X growth tool.

Okay, so you realize the power of building in public. You build a dev agency around it, which is amazing. Most people would stop there. 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 an employee. A relationship was breaking down. I realized that building products for other people was unfulfilling. In January 2025, I made a New Year's resolution to start vlogging. I posted about filming in public while I was at the airport in Amsterdam flying to Rio de Janeiro. When I landed, I opened my phone and the post had over a million views. It was another breakthrough. The timing made sense. I'd started vlogging. I closed down my agency. This was also when I was starting to build SuperX.

But those first seven months were brutal. I got hospitalized in Guatemala with food poisoning. A few months later, I got hospitalized again in Colombia. Meanwhile, X kept changing their API, causing stability issues in SuperX. Every day I'd open my inbox and see messages saying SuperX was down. But I kept building and I kept posting. I look back and realize I was uncomfortably vulnerable many times. If I wasn't as vulnerable as I had been, I don't think I would have built the audience or grown my SaaS to the numbers we're doing now. With AI, there's so much slop content. People want to follow people. They want stories. So if you go on X and share your story honestly and vulnerably, that's how you build an audience in 2025.

Those brutal seven months led up to the launch in July. I posted a standard launch post with a screen recording and breakdown. It got 32,000 views and 26 signups. Then I set it down in front of my laptop, took a selfie, and posted on X. That post got over 46,000 views. The funny thing is that although that post wasn't advertising SuperX, it drove way more signups than the launch post did. Thanks to that post, we added $1,000 in MRR in 24 hours. I took that as a signal to keep going. I started using SuperX to grow SuperX. I used the systematic approach built into SuperX to grow on X. I finally systemized my content strategy. I found what was going viral, built it, posted it with my personality, doubled down on the hits, and killed what didn't work. All of it was organic through the strategy 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, your chances of building a successful product are a lot higher. If Rob's story resonates with you, I've got something special you should check out. Inside Starter Story Remote, we go over 17 distribution channels that successful founders are using today. We source data from the hundreds of founders we've talked to through YouTube and through Starter Story. One of those 17 channels is building in public. We have modules on how to do it. I want to give you all that for free. If you click the link in the description, you can access our build in public modules going over Rob's and other strategies used by successful founders to build real businesses. It won't be free forever as it's part of the larger Starter Story Remote accelerator. If you've built stuff and you're ready to take it to the next level, focus on distribution, attention, audience, and customers, then you're definitely going to want to check it out. Let's get back to the interview.

All right. Thanks for sharing that, Rob. I think that's amazing. 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 know a lot of people watching this want to build in public. They want to grow followers. They know that having an audience is important in this age of AI. So my question to you is: 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?

Step one is set your foundation before you post anything. Set up your profile with three things. First, your profile photo. Pick something friendly, smile, post your actual face, and don't change it often because people will associate it with you. Second, your bio. You want one clear sentence explaining what you're doing. Third, your pinned post. You want your goal or elevator pitch. In my case, it was: left my job, left my home to live on savings and try to build my dream SaaS to $10K a month. You want that pinned at the top of your profile. This step is crucial. When people see your content in the feed and click on your profile, they need to instantly understand what you're doing and your story so they want to follow along.

Step two is pick your goal and commit to it. A lot of people just post on X without intention. You need to pick one specific goal and document the process of working toward it daily. This gives you consistency because people forget you otherwise. It gives you a storyline because people follow stories. And it gives you authenticity because it lets you share the ups and downs and builds trust.

Step three is the content loop. This framework changed everything for me. Your content should be four types: entertaining, educational, inspirational, and convincing (selling your product). But the key is that you don't post them randomly. You post with intention following this loop.

Start with something entertaining: the viral post you want. Something funny, relatable, vulnerable, or a fun tool launch. This gets engagement and attention. Then follow up with educational or selling. Now that you have attention, teach something, give value, or pitch your product, but from a place of goodwill. For example, here's how you grow on X with SuperX. Then the final part of the loop is inspiration. At this point you've probably got views, maybe sales, maybe followers. Take a screenshot, post it. It might go viral. But importantly, share what it means to you. For example, this is why I left my job. Moments like this make it worth it. Write it from the heart. People should root for your journey authentically. 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 they see the value you bring, and it sells without being annoying.

Step four is systemize what works. This is 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. I use the SuperX Chrome extension for this, but you can use whatever. Identify the concept, not the actual post. Take that concept, then make it in your own style. A real example for me: I used SuperX to analyze what was going viral in my niche. I found that "curse for tweets" and "algorithm simulator" were going viral. So I built those features in SuperX. I posted a demo and it worked. It was combining a proven viral concept with my personality.

Step five is double down on what works and kill what doesn't. By this point, you'll have signal. Track every post's performance. Find your patterns. What format works best? In my case it was video. What style resonates? What topics engage? For me it was feature releases and authentic moments. When you find what works, make more of it. The algorithm rewards consistency. And importantly, kill what doesn't, even if it went viral. In my case, the algorithm simulator went viral, but I killed it from SuperX because most people didn't use it.

Step six is build real connections. This is the crux of it all. So far it feels cold and calculated, but you want to build real connections like you would in real life. I see a lot of my audience as genuine friends. I've met up with them while traveling. Growth isn't just from viral posts. You need to build a community through intentional engagement. What most people do wrong is focus on quantity. They use AI to spam replies under hundreds of posts with generic comments. That builds no real connections. What works is finding people in your niche you genuinely want to connect with and replying with real value. Share your experience, share stories, ask thoughtful questions, and stay consistent with the same people. Show up daily, be yourself, not a robot.

Finally, step seven is 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 well because it keeps people on the platform longer. This changes, so you need to adapt. When I switched from text to video, I got 10x the reach. The bottom line is it isn't about luck. It's about building trust through consistent storytelling, systemizing virality through data and analytics, and focusing on real friendships. If you do this, you won't need paid ads.

All right. Thank you for sharing that amazing playbook. I really do believe anybody can build in public. It's not going to happen overnight, but that was great. Thanks for sharing that. I realize we haven't talked too much about the app you've built. I think a lot of people watching might be curious. Could you give me a demo of SuperX and 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. None of these posts existed before. They're doing exactly what I said in my playbook. They take what's going viral, pull your context and the concepts of virality, and make posts that will go viral for you. The real source of SuperX is the Chrome extension. You can navigate to any profile and see top posts. Sort by impressions, likes, etc. It gives you real data and insights. I can see the estimated earnings I'm getting through X. We can look at Pat's profile too and see top posts of all time. We can take the viral concepts from these tweets and send them into SuperX to help us write and schedule content. The feature I'm most excited about is SuperX Engage, which helps you step by step reply to posts in your community from people you're interested in. It helps you craft intentional connections. You can reply on X through SuperX and track your replies in one place.

Okay, thank you for sharing that. I'm also curious about the tech stack behind this. You built all this yourself. What is your stack for building and how the business runs?

My philosophy is you pick one stack, learn it deeply, and ignore all the noise because too many people spend time chasing new technologies instead of shipping. My essential stack: for development, Next.js, Node.js, and Tailwind. For databases, SQLite. We use the X API, which costs about $2,000 to $3,000 a month. We use OpenAI and Anthropic Claude Sonnet API, which costs about $1,000 a month. We use AWS for servers, about $200 a month. Zilliz Cloud for vector embeddings, around $200 a month. For personal AI-assisted coding, I use Claude Code, about $200 a month. I use Screen Studio for demos, about $10 a month. Framer for the landing page, about $10 a month. Stripe for payments, and PostHog for analytics.

Okay, cool. Thanks for sharing that. Super cool. The last question that we ask everyone who comes on 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 watching this that wants to build SaaS and build in public like you?

First thing I would say is breathe. Second, do things with intention, not emotion. Figure out what you want, cut out the noise, and then do an insane amount of volume with intention. Fundamentally, take care of yourself. If you do all of these things, it's just a matter of time.

Well, thanks for coming on the channel, Rob. I think what you did is awesome. Thanks for sharing all the build in public sauce. I think people are going to enjoy this. If you like this video, please leave a comment. If you want to see Rob come back on the channel and go deeper into building in public, I'd love to have him back on. Thanks for coming on, Rob.

Appreciate you, Pat. Thank you.

I want to thank Rob again for coming on the channel. Look, I know the whole building in public thing may not be the sexiest growth strategy in the world. I know a lot of people watching might be thinking, I don't really want to share everything about my life online. But if I were to give advice for someone just starting out who wants to build something online, this is the number one thing I have people do. Share what you're doing. Document it and share your story. In this age of AI where any app or video can be created out of thin air, what's going to last is audience, distribution, real human connection. For bootstrappers building side projects and building stuff online, this may be one of the most important videos you ever watch. I love building in public. It's something I've done for a 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 a matter of weeks, then focus on distribution. All right, guys. Thank you for watching. That's it for this episode. I hope you enjoyed it. We'll see you in the next one. Peace.