The building blocks of building in public [part 1]

tactical tips for founders who always wanted to build in public but are stuck somehow

From my experience, many founders know that they should be building in public.

But they are blocked by the following 10 burning questions that prevent them from taking action:

1. What does building in public actually mean?

2. Why does it seem to work? Why is it better than traditional marketing?

3. What are the benefits to me and why should I care?

4. How can I get started?

5. What social media channel should I pick?

6. How do I decide what my niche is?

7. What do I do if I don’t see immediate results?

8. What if someone steals my ideas? To what extent can I openly share about my business without risking copycats or leakage of sensitive information?

9. What does success look like? How do I know my attempt at building in public is working?

10. How do I balance building vs building in public?

The daily practice of building in public is the single most important habit I’ve developed. It supercharged my career in tech, grew my audience by 80x, attracted high profile jobs at startups, boosted revenue and traffic for my side-projects, carried my podcast to ~40 episodes, and helped me build relationships with business icons like Gary Vee, Alexis Ohanian and more.

In today’s edition, I intend to offer clarity and answers to 4 of these questions drawing from my expertise of building in public over 4 years on Twitter.

Let’s get started with the easy part:

1. What does building in public actually mean?

Building in public is the practice of creating content, and sharing stories with openness and transparency in order to attract like-minded people and nurture those relationships on the Internet.

Here’s what Alexis Ohanian once told me on an interview:

“In the simplest form, building in public is just sharing as you go.”

To me, build in public is writing your own autobiography as a founder, creator or builder one tweet/social media post at a time.

2. Why does it seem to work? Why is it better than traditional marketing?

Because people do not want to be marketed to anymore. They do not want to be sold to. So, instead of broadcasting your offering to them like a marketer, just consistently build in public and engage in an authentic dialogue with them. Speak to them, not at them.

Building in public forces you to practice transparency and storytelling. People love stories, especially when they are unfolding literally in front of their own eyes.

3. What are the benefits to me and why should I care?

The benefits of building in public are multi-dimensional. The direct ones are:

• increased traffic to your websites/landing pages

• accountability (both internal and external)

• braintrust/useful network for anytime you get stuck

• loyal community ready when you launch any product

• lightning-fast feedback loops

• access to crowdsourced resources

4. How can I get started?

• be consistent

  • share at least one update about your work daily

  • how to post consistently? Don’t think of your posts as ‘ideas’. See below:

    KP @thisiskp_

    @fullofsid Don’t think of them as “ideas” Here’s what I use to create a lot of twitter content about 1-2 niches: ✅ share an interesting opinion abt my niche ✅ share a lesson ✅ share a customer quote ✅ share a few top tools you use ✅ share a common myth ✅ share a small win

• be other-oriented

  • make sure your content is less “me-me-me” and more about others (feature and highlight your early customers, treat them like royalty, celebrate other startups in your niche, teach outsiders about your industry)

• be prolific

  • share 10x more than you think you should early on (don’t let perfectionism ruin your momentum)

• be relatable

  • share your wins and reflections on why those happened, and of course share your losses/ failed experiments and your reflections on why those happened, speak with sincerity and curiosity, less like a ‘know-it-all’

• be vulnerable

  • don’t just hack attention, anyone can do that temporarily. Trust is permanent and long-lasting. Aim to be trustworthy by being vulnerable and open. Because trust is built on the bedrock of vulnerability

5. What social media channel should I pick?

The one Elon Musk has been trying to buy. Just kidding. Twitter isn’t the only way to build in public, of course. I’ll share why and answer the remaining questions in the my next edition. For now, I hope the above answers were helpful.

While we are on this theme, catch my latest podcast appearance on the “Founders Found Here” podcast where Jake Hurwitz (CMO, Day One) and I geeked out a full 36 minutes on building in public. Check it out and let me know what you think:

Announcements:

• Guess what? My founder program called “The Build Track” is starting on Oct 17, 2022 at Day One. It is designed to help you get the experience of building businesses quickly within a week. We help you turn 6 ideas into 6 MVPs that make money for 6 weeks back-to-back all while building in public. This will be fun, if this is right up your alley, let’s chat soon. Click here to join Day One and opt into Build Track.

• Last week on the Build In Public podcast, I published an episode featuring Aditya Kulkarni and Raj Kunkolienkar — founders of the traditional Indian MBA Alternative, Stoa, which is India’s pioneer in community-led, cohort-based model for business education. They shared their insights on various topics like:

  • What Raj and Aditya used to do before they came up with Stoa

  • What is Stoa? Its background, thesis, and phases of its growth

  • Challenges they encountered in building Stoa

  • Stoa’s mission and what it aims to achieve with EdTech

Check out the full conversation: (Link to Youtube video, Link to Audio)

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Once again. thank you for reading and giving me a piece of your attention! Hit reply if you have a comment or a question I can help with :)