Playbook
One honest post a week. The whole cohort posts at the same time, and FORGE and the mentors share and comment on every post.
Build in public, together
1 post a week, 30 min max
Tuesday 08:30, cohort posts
12 weeks, 3 big days
Why bother
Investors, customers and hires back momentum they can see
Reach you don’t pay for
The whole cohort posting the same morning, plus mentor comments, puts your post in front of people outside your network.
A dated record
In 12 weeks you have a public log of what you shipped, learned and fixed.
Inbound
People contact you first because they have seen your progress.
The weekly loop
Four steps, Monday to Tuesday
MONDAY
12:00
5 min
Jot 5 quick bullet points for yourself (notes, not posts): a number, what worked, what broke, what you learned, what’s next.
MONDAY
16:00
20 min
Cohort standup. Paste your notes into the drafting prompt, edit the draft until it sounds like you, schedule it. Can’t join? Do it alone by 22:00.
TUESDAY
08:30
Scheduled
Everyone goes live. Share your link in the cohort group chat. That’s where everyone finds each other’s posts.
TUESDAY
Daytime
5 min
Show up in the comments. Reply to yours, then open 2 links from the group chat and leave a real comment.
Missed a week? Nobody chases you. Join next Tuesday. Miss two in a row and we pair you with a cohort buddy.
What good looks like
Plain, specific, a number in the first line
YN
Your Name
Founder, Your Startup · now
Week 3: 14 active users, up from 6.
What worked: onboarding calls instead of onboarding emails. Every call turned into a weekly user.
What broke: our import failed for 2 of 5 pilot customers. We found out from them, not from our logs.
Next week: fix the import, add an alert, book 10 more calls.
If you’ve onboarded B2B users before: calls or a better product tour first?
Week N Update · 72 words
Raw over polished
A phone screenshot beats a designed graphic.
Numbers over adjectives
“14 users” beats “great traction”. Zero and “not yet” are fine numbers.
Post bad weeks too
Nobody gets judged for one.
English first
Add Croatian when your audience is local. Your call, post by post.
Your voice
No FORGE logo needed. Tag the FORGE page once the cohort is announced.
Ask first
No customer names without their OK.
Pick your tier
Stealth founders post too
Tell FORGE your tier before your first post. You can move up any week.
Open
Consumer, most B2B SaaS
SHARE
Real numbers, product, demos, customer insights
NEVER
Anything a customer hasn’t agreed to
Process
Stealth, regulated, long enterprise sales
SHARE
How you work: calls held, experiments run, decisions made, lessons
NEVER
Product name, screenshots, customer names, market-identifying numbers
Anonymous
Deep stealth
SHARE
Lessons only, or a one-line contribution to the FORGE weekly roundup
NEVER
Anything that identifies the company
Process tier example: “Week 4: 11 customer calls, 3 experiments, 2 killed, 1 kept. Here’s what killed them.”
Six post formats
Pick the one that fits your week
DEFAULT · ANY WEEK
Week N Update
“Week 3: 14 users, up from 6. What worked, what broke, what’s next.”
SOMETHING FAILED
The Thing That Broke
“We were sure about X. We were wrong. Here’s what we saw.”
A MENTOR STUNG YOU
Mentor Punch
“Our mentor told us X. It hurt. They were right.”
YOU SHIPPED
Raw Demo
A 30 to 60 second screen recording. No editing, no music. Process tier: a planning board screenshot with sensitive parts hidden.
A USER TAUGHT YOU
Customer Truth
“A customer said one sentence that changed our roadmap.”
YOU DROPPED SOMETHING
The Kill Post
“We killed X this week. Here’s why, and what we do instead.”
Your drafting prompt
Set it up once, reuse it every week
Works in Claude, ChatGPT or any AI chat.
Once, 15 min
Save it as a Claude Project or a custom GPT. Fill in the brackets and add 3 to 5 of your past posts or messages so it writes like you.
Every Monday, in the standup
Paste your bullet points, then edit the draft. Never post it unedited, or the whole cohort starts to sound the same.
The three big days
The whole cohort posts on the same theme
FORGE sends the exact date and a short brief a week ahead. On these three posts, add FORGE as a collaborator (Add collaborators in the post composer) so your post also shows on the FORGE page. Skip this on the Anonymous tier.
1
W0
1
2
3
4
5
2
W6
7
8
9
10
11
3
W12
1 · PROGRAM START
Announcement Day
“Why we joined FORGE”: who you are, what you’re building, what you want from the next 12 weeks.
2 · WEEK 6
Halfway Honest
The hardest thing that broke so far, in numbers, and what you changed because of it.
3 · WEEK 12
Demo Day
Your 90-second pitch clip, recorded in one take. FORGE helps you record it.
Start this week
About one hour in total
Until Announcement Day: post about your startup only. Don’t name FORGE or the cohort yet. FORGE will tell you the date.
When things get hard
If something gets in the way
Nothing happened this week
Post it. “Quiet week, here’s what we learned” is a real post.
You hate posting
A public changelog or a metrics line in the FORGE roundup counts. Talk to us.
You’re pivoting or shutting something down
Use The Kill Post format.
You’re unsure if something is OK to share
Don’t post it yet. Ask in the Monday standup.
