How do you promote your product without sounding too salesy?

I've started separating discovery from conversion.

A reply or post should be useful even if the product link disappears. The profile and product page can do the conversion work after someone gets curious. My quick test is: "Would I still say this if I had nothing to sell?" If not, I rewrite it.

A small real example: today, the only new follower I could directly trace came from a contextual X reply with no DeepPane pitch or link. The person liked it, replied, then followed. Meanwhile, product-first posts mostly sat quietly.

So I don't think the answer is hiding the product. It is earning the right to mention it: lead with the sharp observation, the frustrating moment, or the useful experiment; let the product appear only when it completes the story.

I struggle with this too. The most natural approach I’ve found is to talk about the problem, the decisions, and what I learned—not constantly ask people to visit the product.

Instead of saying “look what I built,” I try to explain:

• what problem appeared;

• why the obvious solution was insufficient;

• what trade-off I made;

• what I still do not know;

• and where feedback would genuinely help.

Promotion feels less salesy when the post would still be useful even if the product link were removed.

What's worked for me is leading with a specific question instead of the product name. Instead of describing what my product does, I ask something like what's the thing that slips through the cracks when you're running more than one business at once. People actually answer that, and the product comes up naturally once we're already talking about the real problem. Feels less like selling because at that point it isn't, the conversation was going to happen anyway.

The tell is in your own post: you have no problem promoting other people's products, only your own. That isn't a personality quirk to work around, it's the strategy sitting right there.

Most of the "salesy" feeling comes from where the ask lives, not how it's worded. If the ask sits inside someone else's space — a comment under their post, an uninvited DM, a P.S. on an unrelated thread — no amount of softening fixes it, because you've made your goal their interruption. If the ask lives on a surface you own — bio, profile, pinned post — then every comment you leave can be pure generosity with no pitch in it at all, and the profile does the selling. You stop sounding salesy because you've actually stopped selling in public. The ask still exists; it just waits to be walked toward instead of chasing.

Two of your tactics I'd gently push back on. The P.S. mentioning your tool under unrelated posts is the single item on your list that reads as salesy to a stranger, and it's the pattern platforms throttle hardest. And editing a post to add a CTA after it performs well is fighting the distribution system — reach is largely decided in the first hour, so you're modifying the thing after the decision has been made, and edits often cost you the tail.

Some counter-data rather than theory: I've been deliberately running the version above for about a week — roughly twenty comments across LinkedIn, Peerlist, and here, every one of them specific technical or positioning feedback, zero links, no mention of what I do. The one conversation that turned into something real came from a founder who read a comment, went to the profile on his own, and messaged me first. The comment did the qualifying. The profile did the converting. Nothing in the comment ever had to ask for anything, which is exactly why it worked.

The version of build-in-public that actually compounds isn't showing your product being built. It's being visibly useful about the problem your product solves, in the places where people who have that problem are already talking. Competence in public is the least salesy advertisement there is, and it's the only one that survives being read by someone who doesn't know you yet.

The approach that feels most honest to me is to separate four kinds of posts:

1. The problem and product philosophy.

2. What we are building and why we made a specific decision.

3. Evidence, including failures and what changed because of them.

4. A direct ask, clearly labeled as an ask.

When every useful observation ends with a hidden sales pitch, people learn not to trust the observation. But a straightforward “I built this, here is the tradeoff, and I want critique” feels different.

For Lernex, I can discuss why learning tools lose context, how adaptive difficulty should work, or why we are training Metis from scratch without asking anyone to sign up. Then when I do recruit learners, I can be explicit about the commitment, incentive, and research goal. The audience gets to choose whether they want the idea, the build story, or the offer.

What's worked best for us with Skryber is letting the output do the talking. Instead of saying "try our AI video tool," we post the actual before/after — a 45-minute podcast episode on the left, 6 ready-to-post shorts on the right. People DM asking how we did it, and that's when we mention the product.

The trick that removed all the "salesy" feeling: we stopped promoting Skryber and started promoting the creator's time. "You're sitting on 10 hours of content that nobody's seen. Here's what that looks like repurposed." The product is just the answer to a question people are already asking themselves.

Build-in-public also helped a lot — sharing what broke, what we rebuilt, what surprised us. People root for founders who are honest about the process.

The shift that helped me was leading with a genuine question or observation about the problem, then only mentioning what I built if someone actually asks. People notice quickly when a post exists to get attention versus when it exists because the person is genuinely thinking about the problem. The founders whose promotion never feels salesy are usually the ones who would still write that same post even if they had nothing to sell.

The thing that's worked for me is only ever talking about the problem I lived through, not the product. FounderFlow came out of watching operational drift kill more businesses than bad strategy ever did, so that's the conversation I show up to have. The product mention is just the last sentence, not the pitch.

This is such a relatable struggle! I'm in the exact same boat — just launched my first product (a free party game) and I feel awkward every time I share it.

Here's what's been working for me so far:

1️⃣ Share the journey, not just the product — Instead of "Try my game!", I post about what I learned while building it. People engage with stories way more than pitches.

2️⃣ Be helpful first, promotional second — In forums like this one, I try to leave thoughtful comments on OTHER people's posts before mentioning my own stuff. It builds trust.

3️⃣ Lead with the problem — I noticed that saying "I built a tool because I was frustrated by X" gets a better response than "Check out my cool new tool!" The problem creates empathy; the product is just the solution.

4️⃣ Own the awkwardness — Sometimes I literally say "I feel weird self-promoting, but I'm proud of this so here goes..." and people actually appreciate the honesty. It's disarming.

The OP's approach of sharing their coding journey on X with a subtle link drop is smart. It doesn't feel salesy because you're giving value (the story/insights) before asking for anything.

Curious what others think — does the "build in public" approach actually convert, or is it mostly just good for networking?

"I never had a problem promoting other people's products. Just my own."

Pretend like you're promoting someone else's product. this helps a lot with the difficulties in essentially bragging about yourself lol. This is working and has helped me grow. thought I'd share and see if it helps!