Building in public, how do you do it? Why do you do it? What do you expose?
We at Portabella just deployed our open startup page (https://portabella.io/open) to be more transparent around how our business is doing.
We previously provided monthly update emails, which we're still going to do, but we thought it also makes sense to publish this page as well. These were metrics I was already checking every day with custom SQL scripts 😅
Do you have a similar page?
How do you do building in public? Building in public is a mindset: it's a mindset of being completely transparent about your progress while building a business. You can do it by sharing your work on sites like Makerlog (shameless plug), or social media. The core concept is simple: you build in the open for external accountability & to grow a community around the stuff you make.
Why do you do it?
- Accountability: It's much harder to slack off when you have tons of eyes on what you make!
- Building community: Building close to your users engages them with your creation process. It considers their input and builds great bonds!
- Building an audience: Being vulnerable online isn't easy, and barely anyone does it. Building in public requires this vulnerability -- that makes you stand out quite a bit.
What do you expose? Whatever can be exposed! Building in public isn't an absolute thing -- share what can be shared. It's a mindset: it's "transparent-by-default", but not "absolutely transparent". Be strategic about it.
Do you have a similar page? Yessir-ski. Makerlog's Open portal.
How; Share your progress on every reasonable platform. Why; Marketing, online presence, "accountability". What; Whatever makes you look cool. A less known snippet, rise on the numbers, graceful failures, wip screenshots and videos.
I started a project, wanted to make it more tutorial-y to offer readers a real story along with the knowledge. Someone killed the buzz and I dropped, deleted the posts. I plan to give it another go soon.
@anilkilic I suggest you focus less on "marketing" and more on "building a community around product". It's more fruitful and serves as a way of marketing your product.
@anilkilic The simplest way to view it? Service. Just serve others, strive to be helpful, and connect folks. Understand your users ambitions and truly care and help them reach them.
That's how you build deep connections with users that will last for a lifetime.
I've recenlty started to focus much more on building in public. For me it's a bit like thinking out loud, giving others the possibility to chime in instead of building all alone.
How
Mostly on Twitter & sometimes on my blog. I try share updates about what I'm building, screenshots of the product, numbers of projects. Whatever comes to my mind, that could be remotely interesting to other makers.
Why
It's great for accountability. Announcing things publicly (best with a deadline of some sort) helps me stick with it.
Also, building an audience with the objective of getting quick feedback. I don't need to have followers just for the sake of it. But getting feedback, opinions and answers about projects, ideas and thoughts helps a lot in every stage of my creator journey.
What
I'd say one should share whatever they are comfortable with. Thoughts & reasoning behind decisions can be just as interesting as open stats like users & revenue numbers.
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