Should You Build in Public? My Honest Take

I want to touch on the topic of “building in public”, I know people that are not convinced they should, too scared to start, or just don’t see the benefit of it. I’m going to touch on different points, the good and the bad of building in public, and if you should be doing it for your specific case.

What Even Is Building in Public? 💡

Building in public is the act of showing off your progress on a frequent basis and being transparent with it through social media. Individuals who build in public are typically sharing their creations/progress on platforms like X (This is what I do), YouTube, or Reddit, with the intention of either building an audience, keeping themself accountable every day, showing off what they made, or typically all of the above.

Why I Tried It (And What I Expected) 🙌

When I first started building in public on X, I had 0 followers and didn’t have much expectation in mind, I wanted to share my progress with whoever was listening and keep myself accountable by making it public daily. I picked up on things that also supported me but I didn’t realize early on, such as having a community to lean on, which makes feedback and support a little easier every day.

I was hesitant at first. I heard about people who have shared their creation or idea on social media when building in public, only for other people to be listening in and steal it for themselves. It was silly of me to think that sharing to 0 people would lead to someone stealing my idea and using it, but that thought was in the back of my head and made me rethink sharing my progress. If this is you as well, you have to realize that execution is a lot more important than the idea, so if someone were to steal your idea and run away with it because you didn’t execute, then that just might be on you.

The Pros and Cons ⚡

I want to touch on points regarding the pros and cons of building in public, some of these may catch your eye and either move you towards starting or reaffirm your idea of building in public.

The Pros

There are a lot of great pros when it comes to building in public which I want to touch on:

• Community Building — You get the chance to build your own community because of what you’re sharing on a day-to-day basis, people want to join in on your journey and you make that easy by sharing your progress through social media.

• Accountability — This is a big one for me. Keeping yourself accountable by posting every day and making sure you do at least something consistently will make the journey easier and allow you to build a habit of being consistent.

• Instant Feedback Loop — When you post your progress on social media, you can get feedback from people who want to share their own opinion on your creation (Which is a good thing). For example, posting 2 screenshots and asking which looks better can elicit a response from someone to give their opinion on it, which is easy feedback.

• Marketing Without “Marketing” — By building in public, you’re building awareness naturally just by sharing progress. No sleazy tactics needed.

• Helps You Document Everything — Your posts become your public journal, which can be helpful for reflection.

The Cons

Of course not everything is rainbows and butterflies, I also want to touch on the cons of building in public:

• It Can Be a Distraction — If you’re just spending all your time building in public, sometimes it replaces the actual progress that you have to do.

• Audience ≠ Customers — If your goal is to just get customers, a good portion of the time your audience won’t directly become your customers. If you’re sharing your development journey to solopreneurs but are creating a product for nurses, you may not find that your audience is also your customer.

• Takes Time to See Results — It’s a long game, you won’t make 2-3 posts and watch it skyrocket (At least not likely), you need to be doing this consistently for quite some time.

• Vulnerability Fatigue — This won’t apply to everyone, but being constantly “open” about your journey can get exhausting, especially when things aren’t going well.

• The Stolen Idea — I touched on this earlier, but there is the real possibility that someone looks at your progress and likes your idea, so they build it themselves. This can be negated by actually making progress on your idea to where them stealing it won’t matter.

Should You Build in Public? 🤔

Here are questions that may help you determine if building in public is for you.

Are you comfortable sharing your progress?

You don’t need to be an extrovert, but you need to be okay showing unfinished work, mistakes, and small wins.

Do you have time to be consistent?

Even light updates (Once a week) take time. If you’re swamped, it might slow you down more than help.

Is your product something people would want to follow?

This isn’t necessary, but if it solves a relatable problem or you’re doing something unique, people are more likely to care.

Are you in this for the long game?

Building in public works best when you play for the slow and steady game. Growth, trust, and credibility take time.

Do you already have an audience?

If not, this can help build one. If yes, it can deepen connection, but you might tailor your approach based on that.

Closing Remarks ✅

I believe that everyone should be building in public because the pros outweigh the cons, but if you’re building a sensitive project or already have success and don’t feel the need to show off your progress, then maybe building in public isn’t for you.

That’s it from me regarding building in public, hopefully this helped you if you were contemplating building in public, or already do so and wanted to hear more about it.

If you want to know how I got my first customers without a huge launch, you can read this article by me 👇

Otherwise, make sure to subscribe for more content, and hope you have a great rest of your day 😃 

— Michael