Build In Public Featured

5 Build In Public Myths Busted

Ayush Chaturvedi

Sep 17, 2022 • 3 min read

Hey there 👋

Today’s post is about the myths around the build in public trend.

But before that I have an important announcement for you.

Indie MBA Event with Jakob Greenfeld

You are invited to the next Indie MBA event, it's with Jakob Greenfeld.

Jakob is a serial entrepreneur who is building multiple fantastic products and writing impactful essays.

We will geek out with him on trends, opportunities and new business ideas.

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This week’s shout out is for a newsletter that every Indie Hacker must read religiously every week.

It’s The Bootstrapped Founder newsletter from Arvid Kahl.

Arvid has a tremendous credibility as an Indie SaaS founders as well as a solo creator.

2 years ago he exited from his edtech SaaS startup which was doing $55K MRR.

Since then he’s written 2 books and built up a huge following on Twitter.

These days in his newsletter he’s writing a series around building a calm SaaS business.

If that’s your goal as well then you should definitely sign up 👇

The Bootstrapped Founder

Now, onto today’s topic -

5 Build In Public Myths that need to die

Building in Public is a popular trend these days among indie hackers to get initial traction on their products.

But there are a lot of myths around how it should be done to be effective or not.

I’ve seen many founders succeed by building in public over the years, and I do a bit of it myself.

I think these 5 myths around building in public that need to be busted -

1. You have to show income screenshots 📈

No you don't

Sure, people on Twitter love to see MRR graphs but you don’t need to share them if you're not comfortable.

Or if they can be harmful to your business.

Share your lessons, but protect your business at all costs

2. You have to create a lot of content 📝

No you don't

Just a simple tweet at the end of the day or a blog post at the end of the week is enough.

What matters is that you share a tiny lesson you learned in your journey. Or something interesting that happened in your business.

That's all anyone who is following you cares about.

3. Building in public works for everyone 🤔

No it doesn't.

There are certain business models where it makes sense to build in public.

Everyone else should do it only to share their lessons with their followers and friends.

Not all your customers are interested in your journey, they just want their problems solved.

No you don't.

There are competitors out there.

Don't share all your traffic sources or growth strategies. Especially if the product can be easily copied.

You can still share earned insights and build a personal brand without revealing critical information about your business.

5. You can only Build In Public on Twitter 🐦

Not really.

You can do it wherever you feel comfortable -

Indie Hackers
Wip.co
A niche sub reddit
A YouTube channel
A Podcast
A Newsletter

Pick a platform you like and use it to share your journey.

People build in public for mainly 3 reasons -

As a marketing strategy in the initial days.
Find support from a community.
Share their lessons for other founders following their journey.

None of these reasons mean you have to follow a specific path or put your core business in danger.

That’s it for today.

Do you build in public? Drop a comment and let me know.

More from me -

Thank you for reading, see you again next week 🙏

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Time to go.

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