jia
@jia_seed X
A hackathon student in SF: 0 to 10K on X in about eight months
jia posted student schedules and hackathon logs to a few hundred views for half a year. From January 2025 he replied all day and posted each new result: angel checks, a turned-down Disney offer, a hackathon win. After a month away, a comeback post took off. He says he hit 10K in August 2025; today he has 20.8K.
- Report
- v1
- Data as of
- 2026-11-08
- Sample
- 860 days of posting counts
jia@jia_seeda few weeks ago, I left X to just focus on building
two days ago, I randomly decided to come back and post a tweet. It got 800k views
View on X →At a glance
- What it is
- A young founder posting his hackathons, raises and lessons.
- Who it's for
- Students, young founders and investors in SF tech.
- How it earns
- It doesn't directly: X brings funding and contacts for his startup.
- How it took off
- Daily replies, a post for each result, then a comeback post after a month away.
X followers Fact
20.8K
Nov 8, 2026
To 10K Self-reported
~8 months
Jan 2025 → Aug 20, 2025
Comeback post Derived
172K
views, 59× the sample median
Replies per main post Derived
~7
Jan 1 to Aug 20, 2025
Summary
The play
Reply to people your size every day; post each real result on its own, with the number; tell your origin story in one long thread.
Can you copy it? Our read
What you can copy is the method: reply daily to people your size, post each result with its number, tell your story once. What you can't copy is the results. Fits a founder or student who has something new to report every few weeks.
- What it takes
- A real result every few weeks, and about an hour a day for replies.
- Startup cost
- Time only; no paid tools needed.
- Time to a verdict
- Judge it after three months of daily replies: his posts in the sample moved from hundreds to thousands of views in that time.
- Window
- "Young founder in SF" is a crowded lane on X; a clear label of your own matters more than the city.
Key findings
Replies came first
In January 2025 his replies jumped from 82 to 685 a month. Over the eight months to 10K he replied about seven times for every main post. See play 2.2 (subscribers)
Every result got its own post
Angel checks 11,623 views, turning down Disney 15,438, the YC hackathon win 150,408. In the sample, opinions and schedules rank low. See play 2.1 (subscribers)
The break, then the comeback
He posted 6 main posts in 32 days. Four days after he came back, his comeback post reached 172,299 views; his recap thread three weeks later reached 655,546. See play 2.3 (subscribers)
His thread mostly checks out
"8 months" holds if you count from January 2025. The reply-guy advice and the 200-views start hold. "Frequency doesn't matter" can't be checked: his 10K month was also his busiest.
What this channel is
- Platform
- X
- Format
- Short text posts, some threads, many replies
- Who
- 22, co-founder at jam (self-reported)
- Started
- Feb 16, 2024 (account opened); serious from Jan 2025
- Pace
- 2.3 main posts and about 16 replies a day in the growth stretch
- Location
- San Francisco; posts follow US Pacific time
Every number is tagged
- Fact straight from public data
- Derived calculated from facts
- Estimate from published pay ranges
- Self-reported what the creator says
- Our read our judgement
01How it happened
How the X following grew
- X 20.8K
- Fact
- Self-reported
Hollow dots: self-reported (the creator's own milestone posts) or derived. Solid dots: measured.
- under 1×
- 1–3×
- 3–10×
- 10× and up
Each bar is one day, in date order; its height is how many main posts (originals, quotes and articles; not replies) went out that day. This chart counts posts per day rather than listing each post. May 2–3, 2026 read zero for every account we track: a gap in the data.
| When | X followers | What happened |
|---|---|---|
| Feb 16, 2024 | 0 (account opened) | |
| Jun–Nov 2024 | — | 0–17 main posts a month: schedules and hackathon logs. July and August posts had a median of 223 and 281 views |
| Oct 2024 | — | "First solo international flight" to a hackathon: 14,540 views, his first post past 10K |
| Dec 28, 2024 | — | "Our first ever 2 angel investor checks": 11,623 views |
| Jan 2025 | about 0 (self-reported start) | Replies jump from 82 to 685 a month; main posts from 17 to 76 |
| Mar 2025 | — | Turns down a Disney internship: 15,438 views |
| Apr 29–May 1, 2025 | — | 49 main posts in three days, his busiest stretch; the ones in the sample are short quote posts following people back |
| Jun 23–Jul 24, 2025 | — | Almost stops: 6 main posts in 32 days |
| Jul 28, 2025 | — | Comeback post: 172,299 views |
| Aug 20, 2025 | 10,000 (self-reported) | "0 to 10k followers in 8 months" thread: 655,546 views |
| Aug 24, 2025 | — | Wins two first places at a 24-hour YC hackathon: 150,408 views |
| Oct 2025 | — | Two origin-story posts: 116,131 and 102,137 views |
| Nov 8, 2026 | 20,794 (fact) | Following 7,447 accounts (fact) |
Views are as of Nov 8, 2026. Follower counts before today are his own posts (self-reported); X does not publish follower history. Views cover part of his posts, not every one; the post counts per day are complete.
Their own numbers, checked
His August 2025 thread explained how he grew. We checked what can be checked against the public posts and daily post counts:
| What he said (self-reported) | What the data shows (fact) | Verdict |
|---|---|---|
| "0 to 10k followers on twitter in 8 months" | About 18 months from opening the account. In January 2025 his main posts jumped from 17 to 76 a month and replies from 82 to 685; from there to Aug 20 is about 7.6 months | Holds, counted from January 2025 |
| "At 0–100 followers, be a reply guy" | Jan 1 to Aug 20, 2025: 3,720 replies against 542 main posts, about 7 replies per post | Holds |
| "You will average 200 impressions per post" | All main posts in July and August 2024: median 223 and 281 views | Holds |
| "Threads are pretty effective" | In our sample, posts over 500 characters had 3.0 times the sample median | Holds, within the sample |
| "Post frequency doesn't matter" | Jun 23 to Jul 24, 2025: 6 main posts, then a post at 172,299 views four days after he came back. But August 2025, the month he hit 10K, was also his busiest month | Can't check: it is an opinion, and the data points both ways |
| "I left X; my comeback tweet got 800k views" | Leaving holds: 6 main posts from Jun 23 to Jul 24. The 800K post is not in our sample | Holds on leaving; the 800K can't be checked |
| "Put something unique in your bio; mine is hackathons" | His bio today says "22. prev. drone research, dropped big tech" and co-founder at jam, no hackathons | Can't check: we can't see his bio from then |
| "Not botting, not forcing people to comment" | He follows 7,447 accounts and has 20,794 followers | Can't check |
Reading the numbers
Fact
223 → 16,447
Median views: all posts of July 2024 → sample posts of October 2025
July 2024 is every post; October 2025 is a sample skewed toward month-end.
Fact
655K
Views on his 0 to 10K thread
Posted Aug 20, 2025, three weeks after the comeback post.
Derived
1.25%
Engagement
Median of (likes + replies + reposts) ÷ views over the 250 posts in the sample.
Fact
7,447
Accounts he follows
Against 20,794 followers, Nov 8, 2026.
In the creator’s words Self-reported
i'm young, hungry, and not part of the inner network.
More cases to read
Cases that share a play with this one come first.
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Rexan WongXA 16-year-old's app launch on X: 100 to 10K in one yearPlays: Build in public, Product launch, Age hookFollowers24.9KBreakout10K in about 8 months
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