Anecdotal, but it seems like all the people who “build in public” end up trapped by their chosen distribution strategy.
What I mean by this is, if you’re building in public there’s a 99% chance you’re going to end up building products for other indiehackers who are interested in following people who build in public.
This means you’re probably going to end up building yet another micro-Saas dev tool (Saas boilerplate, incident monitoring, etc) or growth hacking tool (for social media, SEO, cold email, AI content, etc).
And you’ll probably get modest success fast, since indiehackers like tools that help them indiehack and if they follow you on social media to hear stories of how they can get rich quick, they’ll definitely buy a product from you promising to help them do that.
However, I think you’ll struggle to ever “cross the chasm” so to speak into building a company that’s bigger than whatever online personality you build (no mass markets or low churn businesses without pyramid scheme dynamics).
This. I like listening to technical solo founders talk about they built. Its the less technical marketing guys building in public their AI "powered" crud apps or micro SaaS like you describe that really bother me. They remind me a lot of scammy people on Instagram talking about drop shipping or whatever the get rich quick scheme of the week is.
I see your point, but I would disagree with you somewhat.
Every new startup needs to navigate the transition from early adopters to bigger names and/or more mainstream users who give you credibility and higher revenue potential. But it’s almost always done as a stepping stone approach. You need to get the early adopters first or else none of the rest matters.
Doing this is not easy so any conceivable advantage is worth considering. Of course targeting build in public and indiehackers are not the only possible strategies for getting early users, but if it’s working for you, don’t underestimate how valuable that is.
Of course I do agree about going into it with both eyes open and knowing that if you’re successful enough, you will likely have to evolve somehow toward another customer segment. But again, this is almost always the case no matter what your early adopter channels are.
> if you’re building in public there’s a 99% chance you’re going to end up building products for other indiehackers who are interested in following people who build in public.
Every time I dip my toes into indiehacker communities it's this all the way down: Indie hackers building personal brands to sell products to other indie hackers via their Twitter or TikTok.
This is an issue with a lot of online creator communities and people using them for marketing too. Way too many would be authors, artists, game developers, YouTubers, musicians, etc end up marketing their work in communities for their choice of art/project rather than in places their actual audience visits.
Unfortunately as you point out, while that can work to a limited degree, it will usually cap off pretty quickly. Gotta market to customers, not other creators.
> What I mean by this is, if you’re building in public there’s a 99% chance you’re going to end up building products for other indiehackers who are interested in following people who build in public.
I've seen so many indie hacker types who are allergic to talking to (would-be) customers, seeking validation exclusively from other indie hackers, who would never be customers.
Saw a tweet the other day of someone saying "to find a good business idea, first tweet about it and see if it gets love."
It's the same problem with indie game development. Lots of people get into gamedev and when they have a semblance of a game they start to think "how am I going to get players to try it?" Most of the venues for game developers are just full of other game developers.
The biggest problem is when the game leaves the cradle of a gamedev community that is nice to beginners and is thrown into the wilderness of actual gamers that don't know how much effort it takes to make a game and don't really care. They won't mince words.
I suppose it's just a common class of error to not think beforehand what your end game strategy is going to be? Step 1: make thing. Step 2: ?. Step 3: profit.
I've seen the other side of this, which is zero organic growth and enormous strain on founders to become salespeople and customer support for customers that perpetually keep your software in a trial period. Depending on where you want to allocate your resources that may or may not make sense compared to building in public.
That said, the bigger risk is building products for hobbyists/students/tourists because it won't have the ability to "cross the chasm" as you put it. At least with the hacker scene you have a few legit people to drive development forward.
Yes, the "public" they're building in isn't a very interesting one and already crowded by podcasts, blogs, tutorial sites, etc.
If instead you're building, e.g., construction software, then it makes sense to be public to the construction space and build excitement there. But everyone's "public" is where developers congregate, leading to building just for that crowd instead.
I think the right strategy is to use building in public to get a bunch of initial users and traction, then iterate on your product to the point where other channels like SEO/PPC are going to be profitable.
It's interesting how the urge is always to build something "bigger". When you run the numbers on a revenue per employee basis, the indiehackers are the biggest kids on the block.
I'd prefer a legion of small businesses that generate great wealth for the people around them, than a single, venture funded, loss making, mega-corp concentrated in SF.
I used to build in public (Candy Japan), and now don't.
Good things. It does bring customers directly. At least for blogging, building in public posts can get some backlinks, which is great for SEO. For some time I had the #1 result for my top search term. That might make it worth it overall.
Negative things. It motivates others to clone your project, as now people know that $X/month can be made doing that. Almost no-one will, but if your posts are seen by say 100k+ people then you'll have a few in there who might.
It warps your own thinking, as now you have a bunch of people on social media who see your project as your identity. You start buying into the narrative of being this X
project guy so you can't just go away to do Y, even if on a rational level you know no-one actually cares that much whether you do X or Y.
Seems @levelsio has been immune to this, as he's been smart to have his identity be a guy who ships a variety of things quickly vs. just being say the "Nomadlist Guy" forever.
With his influence and followers, I think @levelsio has made sure that, even if he has competitors, he's gonna gain more attraction than others and do better
I build in public, but I never share numbers. I find that it attracts the wrong sort of people, and a particularly boring kind of conversation about money and growth and the icky business-y bits.
I do work with the garage door open though. I share screenshots, ask for feedback, and show off the little details I spent a lot of time on. It’s basically a DVD commentary for the stuff I am about to release
This attracts the right kind of people, and sparks the right kinds of conversations. I am basically involving fellow builders in my design process, and hyping what I am working on to my audience and industry peers. It is a good way to make friends.
This is the thing that was weird to me about the article: it seemed to focus very heavily on the idea of sharing financial details. To me, that's not "building" in public. That's just... sharing your finances. Building in public is sharing all little details about your product development process that most outsiders would never know or hear about otherwise. It's about sharing the dead ends that never saw the light of day, about sharing the roadblocks that made it difficult to get a feature or even whole product done. It's about sharing how collaboration happens and decisions are made.
This focus on finance is distasteful to me. Not in the "it's a taboo subject" sense, but it just feels like focusing on the wrong thing.
I really like your phrase, "work with the garage door open".
I, also, discovered build-in-public and indie hackers communities about 6-8 months ago, after I failed at "build it, and they will come". Since then, I have revived my Twitter/Mastodon/LinkedIn, followed some people with similar goals, and shared my progress.
Eventually, I have realized that like any community, most people are not willing to do the job and would rather flood the internet with low quality questions like "what payment provider should I chose". People would glorify the "build 432 in 12 months, and see what sticks" approach, thus making their content repetitive ("hey, just launched Y on PH, support my launch!!").
And even the "big players", like levelsio, would post irrelevant stuff such as criticism of EU. Sure, everyone can post what they want, but my desire was to follow people who are smarter, and more successful than me, in order to learn from them, and not be involved in politics. After ~8 months of being there (there = Twitter) on a daily basis -- I quit cold turkey. It's not worth it.
I shared some of my thoughts in my (other) blog [0].
Thanks for sharing. I had the same feeling that browsering Twitter timeline is not so helpful overall, though there are good posts from time to time so you still can't ignore it.
I actually enjoy reading levelsio's non-indie-related posts, but that 's me personally.
Kudos on realizing this after only 8 months. The blog post is spot on. The snarky tweet about chad b2b dev is basically true, except it doesn't have to be B2B. B2C works, too. Just stay clear of the mother of all grifts: telling others how to make money online.
If I have to think on first principles, the reason why people are building things in public is because that's just a form of marketing and self-promotion. We're way past tech being the hard part of launching a product. The harder part is building the audience and trying to stand out. Building in public is probably the easiest way to build buzz, gain an audience, and name recognition.
I don't think there was ever a time when you could succeed in the marketplace on the merits of your tech. Once the tech reaches the relatively low bar of "good enough", the rest is sales and marketing. In the most lucrative enterprise market, the "good enough" bar is even lower than in the much less lucrative consumer market because the people who will actually have to use your tech aren't the ones buying it. Technical quality likely matters the most to "customers" who don't pay anything such as users of popular open source projects.
If you want to make money from a good product then becoming a social media influencer who talks about your product is the most straightforward way to advertise without having to pay for ads.
The elephant behind the elephant in our room is an inability to be honest and upfront about this kind of stuff and instead we have to dance around it. This essentially means we can’t have a decent discussion on any topic that carries actual risk and instead we focus on low-risk banalities.
Also I should add there are a lot of young posters who are, and I won’t sugarcoat it, hopelessly naive at times - certainly saying shit I’d never think about saying when I was their age, so with that we are on a treadmill of constantly seeing, mocking, relearning etc past mistakes.
Hard part of launching _most_ products. But I agree, I'm not sure content marketing, regardless of topic, can have an actual downside in the majority of circumstances. Maybe just the opportunity cost.
Marketing a product seems easier than ever with social media, however the ocean is much larger.
Moreover the author could have easily written this post as "it's time to rethink 'thoughtleader blogging' and it would fit just as well. Most people don't write this stuff for their own pleasure, they write it for eyeballs. They write it for their readers. In that sense I suspect building in public works as well as blog posts like this for gaining a following. There's no one fits all answer to this.
The people described in the article tie the value/success of their product to how much buzz it creates. "Building in public" has shifted away from a way to get initial beta testers and feedback into an echo chamber of clout. This whole process is antithetical to the true success of any project.
There is way too much stuff about all the meta around making projects and just plain clout chasing rather than sharing intellectually interesting projects. I had twitter for an hour before I deleted it because I realized it was just a big popularity contest. The SNR was just too low.
I still think "building in public" is a good thing apart from the buzzword-y semantics it has taken on. The best way to do this is to talk only about the project and the technical challenges it has, and view "building in public" as a moral commitment rather than a marketing one. Perhaps "moral" is too strong a word. I really mean sharing things, not to boost your ego or flex status, but because you think it's actually cool/useful.
Yeah, I'm in the games and when I delved into this article comparing to games... it really just sounds like advertisement, not necesarily knowledge sharing. I thought maybe it'd be different for projects perhaps aimed at fellow hackers, but it sounds like it falls into the same traps of game development; treat it like PR, boost the wins, handwave the losses.
So you run into all the issues non-native ads have: you become noise and the act of talking about your product is a nuisance rather than one to build curiosity. Even for completely free games, sadly (you can thank mobile for that). the huge majority of nobody really cares about you until they do.
And tbf I get it: at least in a hacker scene you're usually trying to perform something somewhat novel and that brings in curious hackers. Games (especially indies as a business) rarely have any novel tech, especially since so many of them rely on the tech of a large engine to do the heavy lifting for you.
Counterargument: I started Canny and we were a "build in public" startup early on. Building in public was an invaluable marketing channel in the early days.
When you are just launching your product, it's really difficult to get those first users and any awareness at all.
If your target audience includes other people in tech, then building in public can be great marketing channel.
Posting about your ideas or your product just isn't that interesting. Posting how much money you're making is very interesting to other people who might want to follow your path.
Like all successful marketing channels, this channel is a lot more saturated these days than when we started (~2017), so it might not work as well anymore.
> If your target audience includes other people in tech, then building in public can be great marketing channel.
> Posting about your ideas or your product just isn't that interesting. Posting how much money you're making is very interesting to other people who might want to follow your path.
Hang on, it feels like there's a contradiction here. Is the audience customers, or is it people who want to follow your path? Or are you thinking that's substantially the same audience?
We are a Canny customer since the early days <3. And I feel that both product and financial information is interesting. I'm a user of your product, so how it works and how you think about it are significant to me as they'll affect my day to day life. But on the other hand, financial information is something that gives me confidence in you as a business. Both can create a sense of emotional investment beyond the transactional relationship we have.
But we're just a regular old software business, not indie hackers and nor does "building in public" describe how we work.
> Let's admit it, the main purpose of build in public is to attract attention and build a community
It's more like open sourcing your code. On one hand: yes, it's good marketing. On the other hand: you're creating positive externality, so random people show up, thank you for your contribution, and help you, monetarily, or by giving you valuable leads & feedback.
it's the same benefit of going to a conference & networking, just doing it continually. It's still useful even if everyone is doing it, because when someone stumbles on your work, they have an entry point/signal on whether there's mutual benefit in collaborating.
that's also just how you make friends. An increasingly hard aspect in western society these days as third places decrease. Yeah, you need to do something to attract attention, especially in a digital domain where all you are are a handle and maybe an avatar. building a community means more of a like-minded pool to potentially become friends with.
I'd kill for some local meetup spot to have already done all this for me, but this is the next best approach.
To me, it always seemed like the "build in public" folks were doing it more for themselves. A way to not feel so alone on the journey, while ultimately working alone. If it helped with marketing and launch, that would be a bonus.
This is my read too. People refer to it as a "community". There's an emotional attachment to being an "indie hacker" that goes beyond "this is a marketing strategy". Of course, as the existence of the community becomes more valuable as a marketing channel, that may shift, and maybe the OP is noticing that it already has shifted?
Interesting take. I've been in the indie hacker scene for a while and I've noticed the same trend. The "build in public" movement has definitely become oversaturated.
While transparency can be valuable, I agree that many are overdoing it, especially with revenue posts. It often feels like peacocking rather than genuine sharing of insights.
I think the key is to focus on providing actual value to your audience. Instead of just posting numbers, share the strategies that led to those numbers, or the challenges you faced along the way. That's much more useful for other founders.
I have a canvas library which was in serious need of a community. One of the things I tried to find that community was joining the indie hackers website - I mean, building in public is the sort of thing I'm already doing with my library's public GitHub repos yes?
I made an intro post and started to setup a profile. On the profile page it says: "Create a founder profile to show off your products, your revenue, and your most ambitious goals and ideas" ... and that's when I realised this wasn't what I wanted. I'm not a founder; I don't have a product to sell. Everybody on the site is shouting about how many customers they've got and how they've cleared their first $100k - but I couldn't see anyone keen to discuss the intricacies of coding up a 2d canvas filter.
So my library still doesn't have a community of people who want to discuss all things 2D canvas. It would be nice if I could find such a community (not on Reddit), or build one, but I'm glad I decided not to hustle with all the rest of the indie hacker crowd building stuff in public.
I’m not sure I understood the author’s point. This write up sounds like a collection of thoughts and observations about trends and the now saturated landscape of “build in public”/“indie hackers”
I’d like to have heard some perspective from people actively participating in this and how their experiences have been
I think the idea is as a growth hacking strategy, people lost their way. The space is crowded and now it usually means people are posting positive numbers go up charts. What value is in that? Why is my chart more engaging than other people's charts?
It's not interesting, engaging, or educational. So as an growth strategy, it sharply slumps off after the initial launch post, and there's zero value to the reader aside from knowing it exists (again, initial launch post).
So it's a call to arms to reevaluate what you're doing. If you're posting number goes up, it's really no different from building in private, it's likely a wasted effort on your part and unnecessary noise to the community. Or maybe return to the old meaning of building in public. Create value for people, actually have a dialogue, and that'll pay dividends (that's the hope anyways) .
> I really dislike that so much of hacker culture is $$ focused now.
I don’t think that’s hacker culture. It’s just the mainstream adoption of hacker culture, don’t let it replace the real thing in your mind. When lots and lots of people started playing candy crush on phones, it wasn’t gamer culture that changed, just the public perception of gaming.
There are still people out there who conform to the description you laid out. Are there lots and lots of them? No. It does seem to be a growing segment though.
There's another very large subgroup you're missing: the hackers that build things (even for $0) because they're fun/cool, not because they solve a specific annoying problem/inefficiency.
It’s an ideal, and like any ideal we manage to capture in a six-letter word, 99% will get it completely backwards.
For example, everyone knows and agrees with the value of the phrase “think outside the box,” but only a minority ever recognizes “the box” they should be thinking outside of, and even fewer bother to fully apply the wisdom by making a habit out of finding the box that’s currently holding them at any given moment.
I think it's less about money and more about the endless access to metrics and analytics which will impact how you feel about your project. A forum of maybe a few dozen people you somewhat know loving something 20 years ago would have sufficed but now it all tends towards vague bigger numbers of people you have minimal knowledge of to feel at all good about the effort put in.
In lieu of 10,000 likes, which might ultimately feel hollow anyway, making a couple hundred dollars will probably suffice.
I made a super niche modding tool a few weeks ago; it's got one star on GitHub but the two nerds that have actually used it are delighted with it and I'm very happy about that. The notion another few in the future will find it is oddly nice to think about
> Would you still build that app, because it solves an annoying real world problem even if you got paid $0?
Assuming you’re talking about building an app for other people, I personally would not, no. The market is sending a clear signal that it values the app at zero dollars. In other words, they don’t want it.
> If not then the problem you are solving is probably not important and a waste of your time anyway.
This is exactly the question that charging money answers: Do people just say they want your app or are they willing to “put their money where their mouth is” and actually buy it?
(Also note that not all things are paid for with money. Some are paid for with time or attention, so adjust for that if necessary.)
>Making money is a side effect of doing what you would do naturally because if you didn’t you would lose self respect.
Most hackers some 20 years ago weren't worried about money, so they could naturally explore their curiosities in their free time. Hustle culture in general seems to rise and fall inversely to the economic situtation, so I'm not too surprised that we're shifting to $$ over curiosity at the moment.
I definitely resonate with #1 and #3, but I got bills to pay. And some of the things I want to see in the world, well, they would require a lot of money.
This resonates with me. Maybe I’m just nostalgic because I started my career during the hacking scene of the early 2010’s, but it really feels like we’ve lost our way as an industry since then.
It’s weird to say but the whole startup culture has shifted, from founder to hacker and everywhere in between. It’s a victim of its own success because no one is writing feature pieces in media on quants or finance bros with the same gusto as they did in the 2010s for tech founders.
So the attention combined with the desire to escape the grind which is only offered in combination by tech founder, has nearly fully been consumed in the broader machine of capitalism.
When we ran out of stored resources to consume, we unsustainably consumed our own attention, and then when that was gone, we turned our attention to the money machine that made it possible, and started eating that.
In the good ol times, being a hacker meant you love tinkering with tech and are good at it.
Then media started using it to mean "computer criminal", which was annoying.
Then "I don't code I solve problems" tech bros coopted it, which is worse. Looks like now you're a hacker if you identify a need and monetize it.
I am fully cognizant I am writing this on a VC-backed founder oriented site called Hacker News, but I like to think there's still some good ol hacker spirit here, YC being named after an extremely nerdy thing and not "SaaS Launchpad" or somesuch.
(yes yes old man yelling at cloud, get off my lawn, etc)
They’re entrepreneurs who don’t really care what you call them. Of course people will try to make money, not everyone can afford to (or is willing to) maintain whole side projects for fun. Some people have side projects unrelated to their main line of work.
What an awful way to live, with the sense that everyone else is a fraud and you’re the only one that’s real. It sounds terribly lonely, and equally unattractive. Who would want to work with, or be around someone, with such a terrible opinion of others?
I tried it, but it’s not very effective. The central problem is the following: The people who are building, aren’t interested in your posts on Twitter. They’re busy building. For the most part in those groups, I saw people’s earnest attempts at getting attention but every moment you spend on self-promotion is a moment you’re not adding features.
The people who do end up getting a lot of attention, they’re better at marketing, but not necessarily building. This is how you end up with people creating pretty-looking tools and products that aren’t particularly innovative but make for nice screenshots.
> retty-looking tools and products that aren’t particularly innovative but make for nice screenshots.
I'm not as cynical with the idea, but you identified the core issue (be it the algorithm or people that came first is an exercise for the reader): Code doesn't make for good engagement with the current structure of social media. your web design or visualization or even simple pie charts of performance differences (obligatory https://www.hackingsap.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/dilbert_p...) is what gets people in. visuals what may or may not be the actual selling point of your project.
I don't really know how to get over that hump. You need some base audience first, and you want to make sure you aren't forgotten. So some public building will always be needed to maintain that.
Wow, I looked at that buildinpublic hashtag and got serious stock market trader forum energy feeling from the posts. Yea people are doing work but its the same kinda thing where the stock people will post a 3000 word write up everyday about their market thoughts but are still not really doing anything. Its like energy looking for a place to be used but in the meantime why not run in place till we drop?
I guess this is what kids with rich parents whos trust fund hasnt matured yet do to kill time nowdays?
> Its like energy looking for a place to be used but in the meantime why not run in place till we drop?
Reminds me of the crypto space during the peak of its hype, where people wrote a flood of articles and software, attracting attention, claiming to be important and world-changing. Yet a year or two later, have evaporated into much ado about nothing. I'm not discounting the possibility that some of it will eventually become popular and practical, but there was sure a lot of smoke and mirrors.
They'll call it "hustle" because other similarly-bored/don't-want-to-do-the-work people will look at it and comment, believing it to be the same as real work.
I'm fully in support of people who decide to 'build in public', but personally, I'm not a fan. While building in public can be a good marketing channel, it can also a pretty massive distraction, especially when you're still so small. I think people still underestimate the distraction and timesink that these social media platforms cause and would often be better off heads-down improving their product and talking directly with their users.
True, most indie hacker apps serve the needs or curiosity of other indie hackers or tech-curious people (think PhotoAI, SaaS boilerplates, etc.). The unwillingness of their creators to scale the business by hiring more developers and shipping additional features—making the apps B2B-worthy, for example—means these apps often remain within that niche. However, when you're already making millions per year, like Levels.io, you might decide that's enough. This is especially true since indie hacking often embraces an ethos opposed to strategies like VC funding or building large teams, which typically drive scaling.
Some indie hacker projects do scale into successful bootstrapped businesses with teams of developers or receive VC funding, but that is the exception. Scaling requires the founder to have a larger vision beyond just making quick bucks and remaining independent—independence being a core motivation of indie hacking in the first place.
https://www.lycee.ai/blog/levelsio-and-the-dilemma-of-premat...
But most indie founders really do not want to have a big team or have a VC with their own incentives. And that is very valid. Many people put value in other things than seeking maximum growth. "small growth" or earning enough to be financially independent is good enough for a lot of people.
Designer here. Got real into no-code back in 2021 as it was really heating up. Seemed like a natural move as I could better understand the logic of what's happening on the back end and also build products solo. Build in public (BIP), somewhat frustratingly for me, was a huge part of a few of the communities I got into. One was led by a marketing-minded "maker", and the other a great inspiring guy who was a bit the inverse.
Everyone in each community became pretty evangelical about BIP due to group think. I bought in at first but became very skeptical eventually as well. Not only do I question the actual efficacy here both in $$ and quality of work, but I think it's a bit inconsiderate to expect everyone to be on board with being this open with their work or push as hard as they did.
I'll occasionally post a bit of what i'm working on but I also after following many "makers" and the like, started becoming really bored with every detail of what they are working on. I say just show me a case study usually unless I'm already intrigued with the end product or you are doing something of great interest/impact
Building in public comes down to a few core things: marketing your product, staying sane, and getting noticed. It’s a way to get people talking about what you’re building before it’s even done. The journey itself becomes the story, pulling in an audience that feels connected to your work.
For a lot of solo founders, though, it’s not just about visibility. It’s about support. Building something alone can be isolating, and sharing your progress becomes a way to stay connected, even when you’re grinding away in a room by yourself. The openness keeps you grounded and helps ward off the burnout that comes with long stretches of isolation.
It also puts you on the radar of other entrepreneurs and investors. They see what you’re up to and can offer feedback, partnerships, or even funding without you having to chase them down. You’re essentially creating a public portfolio of your work in real time.
Some people also use it as a humblebrag—a way to show off without being too obvious about it. That’s fine if that’s your thing, but for most, it’s a way to turn the lonely process of building into something more connected and human.
Definitely agree. Sorry if the article sounds a bit negative, but I'm overall still in favor of building in public, for various reasons like the ones you mentioned.
I assume in most cases people use it as a way to motivate them to finish their side projects. The projects might or might not make it but I found it interesting to follow.
Of course there are outliers like those who keep sharing their MRR, ARR, etc and then down the line sell an e-book on how to replicate their "success". I have followed enough "baits" to notice the pattern and ignore.
Based on my observation, out of 10 "build in public" posts, probably 5 or 6 are sharing revenue
Based on my observation, all the social platforms are now circling the drain of optimizing for engagement, and posts about $$$ get 100x higher engagement than posts about product development insights, reflections, etc.
So the small subset of posts that actually make it to your timeline to be observed are often the ones about money.
That's been my experience building in public so far.
I used to "build in public" with my first app 2 years ago, KTool[0]
But back then most indie hackers only share numbers in their monthly reports, me included[1]. And it's not just MRR screenshots with no content.
Many shared their lessons, experiments, personal struggles... I can't stress enough how helpful this was. To me and to many founders I've talked with. It helps us with the loneliness and we learned from each other's mistakes...
I made a lot of online friends during this period. We were (still are?) inexperienced founders who trying to bootstrap a profitable business and share the experience.
I stopped BIP now, mostly because it takes more time and effort than I could afford. And posting MRR screenshots only is bragging in public, not building in public.
BUT I still believe in the value of BIP, especially when for a newcomer.
You may find people who genuinely support your journey, and if you're lucky, you might build a decent following on Twitter.
Your customers root for you because of your personal and authentic "brand".
Seasoned founders might reach out and point out what you're doing wrong, avoiding making the same mistakes (I did get a lot of valuable advice from successful founders—to me, this has been the biggest value I get out of BIP)
BUT if you treat it as a marketing channel, it probably won't work. Like others mentioned, it's saturated and you're only attracting the wrong kind of audience.
If I was to start again, I would treat BIP as the sandbox to launch my product: ask for feedback, search for a few early adopters who might benefit from my product but not necessarily my ICP.
I keep sharing my thoughts and what I'm working on. Those posts barely get any impressions, but I don't want to post stuff just to please the algorithm.
Building in public to speak to your customers pain points as an audience is one thing.
Building in public for entrepreneurs as audience porn to -feel good about feeling good is a lot harder unless its a product for them.
To me, it's doesn't always make sense to uncover unmet demand in public. But, my own bias in that sentence is I'm aware of that enough to perhaps know the difference, and I very well still might done it if I was starting out.
It's good to speak to the problems of your clients - building in that public is what can be helpful.
I like the indiehackers community a lot, but there's no shortage of lurkers who will imitate. The goal is getting ahead and staying ahead and leveraging positioning others may never understand.
I was very skeptical when I saw this headline, but you got me to click! So, good clickbait?
I love the discussion. I think you may just have self-biased your Twitter feed, and so to you it looks like the world is building in public, but to 99% of the population it's very rare.
Loved the discussion though, and your portfolio and blog are great.
Every time I see "building in public" I cringe. Not sure why.
Anyway I have an app idea for a very small annoyance in my daily life. Listening to Pieter Levels inspired me to at least try and ship it. But there's no way I'm comfortable with all the other indy hacker shite I'd need to do to, like build a twitter profile etc. My only hope is probably showing it on a sub Reddit and seeing if anyone finds it useful.
Anyway, as I work as a developer, even if it fails, it doesn't matter. I'll learn a lot by doing it.
That it all still depends on your twitter persona to build audience, with twitter being a maga show (I only follow devs, still get tons of content I do not want). I find it a very toxic place but seems it's needed if you want to get anywhere sales wise.
I think the phenomenon of a relatively niche social market getting flooded is nothing new and unfortunately it’s going to continue (see also: app stores). I do wonder if eventually people will catch on to the fact that it is the state of the modern open commons, and a new dynamic will need to be devised if they don’t like this one or wish to continue chasing the frontier.
> If you follow enough indiehackers like me, Twitter/X will start recommending posts for you.
I think there's your first problem right there. I recommend seeking dev communities on more federated social networks. I have found there to be more support and less clout/lore building than on Twitter. And supportive communities ship products!
No, it doesn't work. If you actually are solving a problem, then you can do some sort of like beta testing publicly, just how games do play testing, which can be public or not. But other than that, building it in public makes no sense. You might give updates every now and then about what you're building, but that's about it.
This is just an extension of the LinkedIn/YouTube/X "thoughtfluencer" epidemic. If the person sharing has a successful track record in the field and is genuine about sharing/helping - great! 99% of them are, however, only interested in building clout and expanding their personal brand.
The term is "build in public" not "talk about money in public". If you enjoy chatting about the esoteric details of building a useful thing then great. If you're mostly trying to attract customers and you don't enjoy it, then don't do it.
It might be effective at building an audience for a new app but it requires much more engagement in social media than I'm up for. Reddit, on the other hand, I've found to be a pretty good place to build an audience and mostly without the toxicity of X.
Author here. I'm glad to see so many meaningful discussions triggered by this post. Despite raising concerns, overall I still see "building in public" as a positive trend. Like all trends, things emerge and change over time, so we'll see how "building in public" evolves.
If you'd like to sponsor my work, feel free to check out an app I developed:
With one-click, Xylect explains your selected text using an AI knowledge engine, no matter which app you're currently using. It's like bringing Perplexity + dictionary to every app.
I'm also on Twitter/X and Mastodon. I'll share more thoughts in the future:
When it comes to marketing I think we can take a page from the Apple playbook. Never show anything incomplete. Critics and the general
public don’t understand the artistic process and will only become uneasy. nobody cares how you did it. Just show results.
At a more microscopic level, the same goes for git commits. Complete, sensible ideas are much easier to interact with and understand than someone's chaotic half thought through work-in-progress. There's value to this approach at all scales of magnification--completeness and polish aids digestibility and helps {colleagues, users, buyers, prospects} understand the value proposition.
As far as I know the first Apple computer was not really a computer but a box of parts that the customer had to assemble themselves. The early days of Apple is probably the best example of "building in public" because so much of it was actually just selling the dream. In any case, the opposite is infinitely worse. Too many people wasted away for years "building in private". If and when they did finally release it was to the sound of crickets. Hacking for pleasure is one thing. If you're trying to build a business then you must be always be selling and marketing.
For anyone interested in a counter-point (ie; "Transparency is not inherently good and here's why"), the paper "Transparency is Surveillance" is a nice read: https://philpapers.org/archive/NGUTIS.pdf
It basically talks about how people will change their reasoning to suit public opinion when they work publically. You might imagine a scientist who gets a public grant and is required to share their findings publically.
In this hypothetical scenario, let's say their findings are required to be explainable to the public at large. The reality is that when you're building anything (whether it's a theory or a product), the reality is that causes and effects are not always clear nor will they ever be as we see with the human body for example.
As such, while we might think imposing transparency would increase trust, the reality is you'll often find ad-hoc justifications for why things are the way they are rather than just saying "We don't know why X or Y".
The way I see it, those are just a spin on "I did X for Y months and here's what I learned" articles. Clickbait at best but mostly those are just articles that fill void with words. Whenever I stumble upon those, I am never really buy into them. I am a huge believer in the idea of the American dream but in a functioning economy, this can only work a handful of times. Over the years I've attempted creating a startup and bootstrap it on my own or with a small team of friends and the one thing I've learned from those attempts(see what I did there...) is that it's practically impossible, even if you have the right idea and you get the timing right. Arguably I didn't get the timing right on a few occasions and I was way too early for the party. Had I waited for a few years, those might have picked up but the truth is, I sincerely doubt it. At this point, whenever I land on one of those indie gigs, I instinctively roll my eyes and click away.
Another problem is that, as an indie, you probably aren't an experienced marketing person. I've been the one managing "build in the open" with a founder on a popular Kickstarter project and it was awful. If we posted a lot, people complained we weren't spending our time on building the thing. If we slowed down the communications to focus on the project, people said we weren't being transparent or we had taken off with the money. Half of the comments on our posts were from people angry because we hadn't said anything about a super niche feature that only they wanted, or because it didn't do something that even a 100x more expensive product could do.
Entire communities started up around our product. They communicated publicly with us constantly. Their favorite past times were thinking up wild new features that we absolutely must have and trying to devine what was happening internally by over analyzing everything we said. Many of the community members used the size of their community to try to bully us into doing what they wanted. I personally had several emails telling me I was an idiot and a fraud. We were a victim of our own success.
It's the same fate that every open source developer experiences. As soon as you open yourself up to the world, everybody wants something from you and they want it now. If you already have a mature product with a healthy sales funnel and a clear vision, you can market what you have as you wish. If you're in the middle of creating something and you talk about it with others, they will all want a say in what you create and they will be upset if you don't act on their suggestions.
Now that I'm in a large company but working on a new and exciting project, we have hit the same problem internally - everybody who hears about it wants us to build it to suit them and they are disappointed when we instead try to build something that works for everyone. Any other product we made we never talked about into it was largely built and ready to start selling and we never had that kind of bullying behavior.
Something about being on the early phases of development makes people think you want their suggestions and they get rather upset when you don't build what they have in mind. That's why it's better to keep to yourself while you get the foundations in place, then carefully choose who you discuss it with until it's ready for the world to start buying it.
I think as a general rule, any shiny new market strategy will perform worse in year 10 than it will in year 1. Law of diminished returns and all. And that's before factoring in any platform enshittification.
pembrook|1 year ago
What I mean by this is, if you’re building in public there’s a 99% chance you’re going to end up building products for other indiehackers who are interested in following people who build in public.
This means you’re probably going to end up building yet another micro-Saas dev tool (Saas boilerplate, incident monitoring, etc) or growth hacking tool (for social media, SEO, cold email, AI content, etc).
And you’ll probably get modest success fast, since indiehackers like tools that help them indiehack and if they follow you on social media to hear stories of how they can get rich quick, they’ll definitely buy a product from you promising to help them do that.
However, I think you’ll struggle to ever “cross the chasm” so to speak into building a company that’s bigger than whatever online personality you build (no mass markets or low churn businesses without pyramid scheme dynamics).
TechDebtDevin|1 year ago
danenania|1 year ago
Every new startup needs to navigate the transition from early adopters to bigger names and/or more mainstream users who give you credibility and higher revenue potential. But it’s almost always done as a stepping stone approach. You need to get the early adopters first or else none of the rest matters.
Doing this is not easy so any conceivable advantage is worth considering. Of course targeting build in public and indiehackers are not the only possible strategies for getting early users, but if it’s working for you, don’t underestimate how valuable that is.
Of course I do agree about going into it with both eyes open and knowing that if you’re successful enough, you will likely have to evolve somehow toward another customer segment. But again, this is almost always the case no matter what your early adopter channels are.
Aurornis|1 year ago
Every time I dip my toes into indiehacker communities it's this all the way down: Indie hackers building personal brands to sell products to other indie hackers via their Twitter or TikTok.
CM30|1 year ago
Unfortunately as you point out, while that can work to a limited degree, it will usually cap off pretty quickly. Gotta market to customers, not other creators.
andyjohnson0|1 year ago
Sounds a bit like a variation on Conway's Law.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway%27s_law
mvkel|1 year ago
I've seen so many indie hacker types who are allergic to talking to (would-be) customers, seeking validation exclusively from other indie hackers, who would never be customers.
Saw a tweet the other day of someone saying "to find a good business idea, first tweet about it and see if it gets love."
1) what
AlienRobot|1 year ago
The biggest problem is when the game leaves the cradle of a gamedev community that is nice to beginners and is thrown into the wilderness of actual gamers that don't know how much effort it takes to make a game and don't really care. They won't mince words.
I suppose it's just a common class of error to not think beforehand what your end game strategy is going to be? Step 1: make thing. Step 2: ?. Step 3: profit.
duped|1 year ago
That said, the bigger risk is building products for hobbyists/students/tourists because it won't have the ability to "cross the chasm" as you put it. At least with the hacker scene you have a few legit people to drive development forward.
Selling stuff and growing is hard.
HeyLaughingBoy|1 year ago
If instead you're building, e.g., construction software, then it makes sense to be public to the construction space and build excitement there. But everyone's "public" is where developers congregate, leading to building just for that crowd instead.
fuzztester|1 year ago
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossing_the_Chasm
Book by Geoffrey Moore.
quoted a lot by startups for a couple of decades plus.
had read it some years ago. quite interesting ...
a13n|1 year ago
baxtr|1 year ago
If you build a product for indiehackers, you’ll never be able to sell it beyond that initial target market.
I feel like that’s a bit like saying a Social Media platform built for college students won’t never go mainstream.
So I’m wondering: is there any product that started as indiehacker product and eventually ended up becoming a mass market product?
cynicalpeace|1 year ago
I'd prefer a legion of small businesses that generate great wealth for the people around them, than a single, venture funded, loss making, mega-corp concentrated in SF.
I await your downvotes :)
bemmu|1 year ago
Good things. It does bring customers directly. At least for blogging, building in public posts can get some backlinks, which is great for SEO. For some time I had the #1 result for my top search term. That might make it worth it overall.
Negative things. It motivates others to clone your project, as now people know that $X/month can be made doing that. Almost no-one will, but if your posts are seen by say 100k+ people then you'll have a few in there who might.
It warps your own thinking, as now you have a bunch of people on social media who see your project as your identity. You start buying into the narrative of being this X project guy so you can't just go away to do Y, even if on a rational level you know no-one actually cares that much whether you do X or Y.
Seems @levelsio has been immune to this, as he's been smart to have his identity be a guy who ships a variety of things quickly vs. just being say the "Nomadlist Guy" forever.
inquisitor26234|1 year ago
and the guy ships like a machine good lord
"just code more carefully" jesus
laike9m|1 year ago
nicbou|1 year ago
I do work with the garage door open though. I share screenshots, ask for feedback, and show off the little details I spent a lot of time on. It’s basically a DVD commentary for the stuff I am about to release
This attracts the right kind of people, and sparks the right kinds of conversations. I am basically involving fellow builders in my design process, and hyping what I am working on to my audience and industry peers. It is a good way to make friends.
kelnos|1 year ago
This focus on finance is distasteful to me. Not in the "it's a taboo subject" sense, but it just feels like focusing on the wrong thing.
I really like your phrase, "work with the garage door open".
crabmusket|1 year ago
The stuff in the OP is mainly just marketing/trends driven by social media platforms which has grown under the brand of "building in public".
"Working with the garage door open" is a great phrase.
skwee357|1 year ago
I, also, discovered build-in-public and indie hackers communities about 6-8 months ago, after I failed at "build it, and they will come". Since then, I have revived my Twitter/Mastodon/LinkedIn, followed some people with similar goals, and shared my progress.
Eventually, I have realized that like any community, most people are not willing to do the job and would rather flood the internet with low quality questions like "what payment provider should I chose". People would glorify the "build 432 in 12 months, and see what sticks" approach, thus making their content repetitive ("hey, just launched Y on PH, support my launch!!").
And even the "big players", like levelsio, would post irrelevant stuff such as criticism of EU. Sure, everyone can post what they want, but my desire was to follow people who are smarter, and more successful than me, in order to learn from them, and not be involved in politics. After ~8 months of being there (there = Twitter) on a daily basis -- I quit cold turkey. It's not worth it.
I shared some of my thoughts in my (other) blog [0].
[0] https://thesolopreneur.blog/posts/on-buildinpublic-and-indie...
laike9m|1 year ago
I actually enjoy reading levelsio's non-indie-related posts, but that 's me personally.
WA|1 year ago
charlie0|1 year ago
bdw5204|1 year ago
If you want to make money from a good product then becoming a social media influencer who talks about your product is the most straightforward way to advertise without having to pay for ads.
stonethrowaway|1 year ago
Also I should add there are a lot of young posters who are, and I won’t sugarcoat it, hopelessly naive at times - certainly saying shit I’d never think about saying when I was their age, so with that we are on a treadmill of constantly seeing, mocking, relearning etc past mistakes.
goosejuice|1 year ago
Marketing a product seems easier than ever with social media, however the ocean is much larger.
Moreover the author could have easily written this post as "it's time to rethink 'thoughtleader blogging' and it would fit just as well. Most people don't write this stuff for their own pleasure, they write it for eyeballs. They write it for their readers. In that sense I suspect building in public works as well as blog posts like this for gaining a following. There's no one fits all answer to this.
ocean_moist|1 year ago
There is way too much stuff about all the meta around making projects and just plain clout chasing rather than sharing intellectually interesting projects. I had twitter for an hour before I deleted it because I realized it was just a big popularity contest. The SNR was just too low.
I still think "building in public" is a good thing apart from the buzzword-y semantics it has taken on. The best way to do this is to talk only about the project and the technical challenges it has, and view "building in public" as a moral commitment rather than a marketing one. Perhaps "moral" is too strong a word. I really mean sharing things, not to boost your ego or flex status, but because you think it's actually cool/useful.
johnnyanmac|1 year ago
So you run into all the issues non-native ads have: you become noise and the act of talking about your product is a nuisance rather than one to build curiosity. Even for completely free games, sadly (you can thank mobile for that). the huge majority of nobody really cares about you until they do.
And tbf I get it: at least in a hacker scene you're usually trying to perform something somewhat novel and that brings in curious hackers. Games (especially indies as a business) rarely have any novel tech, especially since so many of them rely on the tech of a large engine to do the heavy lifting for you.
a13n|1 year ago
When you are just launching your product, it's really difficult to get those first users and any awareness at all.
If your target audience includes other people in tech, then building in public can be great marketing channel.
Posting about your ideas or your product just isn't that interesting. Posting how much money you're making is very interesting to other people who might want to follow your path.
Like all successful marketing channels, this channel is a lot more saturated these days than when we started (~2017), so it might not work as well anymore.
crabmusket|1 year ago
> Posting about your ideas or your product just isn't that interesting. Posting how much money you're making is very interesting to other people who might want to follow your path.
Hang on, it feels like there's a contradiction here. Is the audience customers, or is it people who want to follow your path? Or are you thinking that's substantially the same audience?
We are a Canny customer since the early days <3. And I feel that both product and financial information is interesting. I'm a user of your product, so how it works and how you think about it are significant to me as they'll affect my day to day life. But on the other hand, financial information is something that gives me confidence in you as a business. Both can create a sense of emotional investment beyond the transactional relationship we have.
But we're just a regular old software business, not indie hackers and nor does "building in public" describe how we work.
zrkrlc|1 year ago
On the contrary, I wouldn’t be using Capacities if they didn’t have their entire development roadmap on your product, so thanks
OmarShehata|1 year ago
It's more like open sourcing your code. On one hand: yes, it's good marketing. On the other hand: you're creating positive externality, so random people show up, thank you for your contribution, and help you, monetarily, or by giving you valuable leads & feedback.
it's the same benefit of going to a conference & networking, just doing it continually. It's still useful even if everyone is doing it, because when someone stumbles on your work, they have an entry point/signal on whether there's mutual benefit in collaborating.
johnnyanmac|1 year ago
I'd kill for some local meetup spot to have already done all this for me, but this is the next best approach.
al_borland|1 year ago
crabmusket|1 year ago
readthenotes1|1 year ago
Stem0037|1 year ago
While transparency can be valuable, I agree that many are overdoing it, especially with revenue posts. It often feels like peacocking rather than genuine sharing of insights.
I think the key is to focus on providing actual value to your audience. Instead of just posting numbers, share the strategies that led to those numbers, or the challenges you faced along the way. That's much more useful for other founders.
rikroots|1 year ago
I made an intro post and started to setup a profile. On the profile page it says: "Create a founder profile to show off your products, your revenue, and your most ambitious goals and ideas" ... and that's when I realised this wasn't what I wanted. I'm not a founder; I don't have a product to sell. Everybody on the site is shouting about how many customers they've got and how they've cleared their first $100k - but I couldn't see anyone keen to discuss the intricacies of coding up a 2d canvas filter.
So my library still doesn't have a community of people who want to discuss all things 2D canvas. It would be nice if I could find such a community (not on Reddit), or build one, but I'm glad I decided not to hustle with all the rest of the indie hacker crowd building stuff in public.
autocole|1 year ago
I’d like to have heard some perspective from people actively participating in this and how their experiences have been
candiddevmike|1 year ago
DistractionRect|1 year ago
It's not interesting, engaging, or educational. So as an growth strategy, it sharply slumps off after the initial launch post, and there's zero value to the reader aside from knowing it exists (again, initial launch post).
So it's a call to arms to reevaluate what you're doing. If you're posting number goes up, it's really no different from building in private, it's likely a wasted effort on your part and unnecessary noise to the community. Or maybe return to the old meaning of building in public. Create value for people, actually have a dialogue, and that'll pay dividends (that's the hope anyways) .
hakanderyal|1 year ago
Some share numbers, some don’t. Some share everything, some goes with outlines. Some… you get the idea.
I do it because it’s boring to build alone, month after month, year after year. I’ve joined the community 2 years ago and couldn’t be happier.
patrickhogan1|1 year ago
1. Being a hacker means walking the world being constantly dissatisfied by all of the inefficiency you see on a daily basis and wanting to fix it.
2. Being a hacker means feeling like most of the software world is fraudulent and you are going to build a solution that actually works.
3. Being a hacker means building something because it is fun or cool.
Making money is a side effect of doing what you would do naturally because if you didn’t you would lose self respect.
voiceblue|1 year ago
I don’t think that’s hacker culture. It’s just the mainstream adoption of hacker culture, don’t let it replace the real thing in your mind. When lots and lots of people started playing candy crush on phones, it wasn’t gamer culture that changed, just the public perception of gaming.
There are still people out there who conform to the description you laid out. Are there lots and lots of them? No. It does seem to be a growing segment though.
zaptrem|1 year ago
ppqqrr|1 year ago
forgotacc240419|1 year ago
I made a super niche modding tool a few weeks ago; it's got one star on GitHub but the two nerds that have actually used it are delighted with it and I'm very happy about that. The notion another few in the future will find it is oddly nice to think about
jamil7|1 year ago
sokoloff|1 year ago
jt2190|1 year ago
Assuming you’re talking about building an app for other people, I personally would not, no. The market is sending a clear signal that it values the app at zero dollars. In other words, they don’t want it.
> If not then the problem you are solving is probably not important and a waste of your time anyway.
This is exactly the question that charging money answers: Do people just say they want your app or are they willing to “put their money where their mouth is” and actually buy it?
(Also note that not all things are paid for with money. Some are paid for with time or attention, so adjust for that if necessary.)
johnnyanmac|1 year ago
Most hackers some 20 years ago weren't worried about money, so they could naturally explore their curiosities in their free time. Hustle culture in general seems to rise and fall inversely to the economic situtation, so I'm not too surprised that we're shifting to $$ over curiosity at the moment.
winwang|1 year ago
joshdavham|1 year ago
null0pointer|1 year ago
svnt|1 year ago
So the attention combined with the desire to escape the grind which is only offered in combination by tech founder, has nearly fully been consumed in the broader machine of capitalism.
When we ran out of stored resources to consume, we unsustainably consumed our own attention, and then when that was gone, we turned our attention to the money machine that made it possible, and started eating that.
fwip|1 year ago
Edit: Deleted a claim that was probably stronger than I meant.
senko|1 year ago
Then media started using it to mean "computer criminal", which was annoying.
Then "I don't code I solve problems" tech bros coopted it, which is worse. Looks like now you're a hacker if you identify a need and monetize it.
I am fully cognizant I am writing this on a VC-backed founder oriented site called Hacker News, but I like to think there's still some good ol hacker spirit here, YC being named after an extremely nerdy thing and not "SaaS Launchpad" or somesuch.
(yes yes old man yelling at cloud, get off my lawn, etc)
unknown|1 year ago
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namanyayg|1 year ago
laike9m|1 year ago
hwhwhwhhwhwh|1 year ago
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sureIy|1 year ago
They’re entrepreneurs who don’t really care what you call them. Of course people will try to make money, not everyone can afford to (or is willing to) maintain whole side projects for fun. Some people have side projects unrelated to their main line of work.
stonethrowaway|1 year ago
philosopher1234|1 year ago
janalsncm|1 year ago
The people who do end up getting a lot of attention, they’re better at marketing, but not necessarily building. This is how you end up with people creating pretty-looking tools and products that aren’t particularly innovative but make for nice screenshots.
johnnyanmac|1 year ago
I'm not as cynical with the idea, but you identified the core issue (be it the algorithm or people that came first is an exercise for the reader): Code doesn't make for good engagement with the current structure of social media. your web design or visualization or even simple pie charts of performance differences (obligatory https://www.hackingsap.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/dilbert_p...) is what gets people in. visuals what may or may not be the actual selling point of your project.
I don't really know how to get over that hump. You need some base audience first, and you want to make sure you aren't forgotten. So some public building will always be needed to maintain that.
citizenpaul|1 year ago
I guess this is what kids with rich parents whos trust fund hasnt matured yet do to kill time nowdays?
lioeters|1 year ago
Reminds me of the crypto space during the peak of its hype, where people wrote a flood of articles and software, attracting attention, claiming to be important and world-changing. Yet a year or two later, have evaporated into much ado about nothing. I'm not discounting the possibility that some of it will eventually become popular and practical, but there was sure a lot of smoke and mirrors.
The Hustle - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_o7qjN3KF8U
mattgreenrocks|1 year ago
joshdavham|1 year ago
fsndz|1 year ago
Some indie hacker projects do scale into successful bootstrapped businesses with teams of developers or receive VC funding, but that is the exception. Scaling requires the founder to have a larger vision beyond just making quick bucks and remaining independent—independence being a core motivation of indie hacking in the first place. https://www.lycee.ai/blog/levelsio-and-the-dilemma-of-premat...
ssijak|1 year ago
MavisBacon|1 year ago
Everyone in each community became pretty evangelical about BIP due to group think. I bought in at first but became very skeptical eventually as well. Not only do I question the actual efficacy here both in $$ and quality of work, but I think it's a bit inconsiderate to expect everyone to be on board with being this open with their work or push as hard as they did.
I'll occasionally post a bit of what i'm working on but I also after following many "makers" and the like, started becoming really bored with every detail of what they are working on. I say just show me a case study usually unless I'm already intrigued with the end product or you are doing something of great interest/impact
datahack|1 year ago
For a lot of solo founders, though, it’s not just about visibility. It’s about support. Building something alone can be isolating, and sharing your progress becomes a way to stay connected, even when you’re grinding away in a room by yourself. The openness keeps you grounded and helps ward off the burnout that comes with long stretches of isolation.
It also puts you on the radar of other entrepreneurs and investors. They see what you’re up to and can offer feedback, partnerships, or even funding without you having to chase them down. You’re essentially creating a public portfolio of your work in real time.
Some people also use it as a humblebrag—a way to show off without being too obvious about it. That’s fine if that’s your thing, but for most, it’s a way to turn the lonely process of building into something more connected and human.
And I think that shouldn’t be discouraged.
laike9m|1 year ago
unknown|1 year ago
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faizmokh|1 year ago
Of course there are outliers like those who keep sharing their MRR, ARR, etc and then down the line sell an e-book on how to replicate their "success". I have followed enough "baits" to notice the pattern and ignore.
scubakid|1 year ago
Based on my observation, all the social platforms are now circling the drain of optimizing for engagement, and posts about $$$ get 100x higher engagement than posts about product development insights, reflections, etc.
So the small subset of posts that actually make it to your timeline to be observed are often the ones about money.
That's been my experience building in public so far.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
longnguyen|1 year ago
But back then most indie hackers only share numbers in their monthly reports, me included[1]. And it's not just MRR screenshots with no content.
Many shared their lessons, experiments, personal struggles... I can't stress enough how helpful this was. To me and to many founders I've talked with. It helps us with the loneliness and we learned from each other's mistakes...
I made a lot of online friends during this period. We were (still are?) inexperienced founders who trying to bootstrap a profitable business and share the experience.
I stopped BIP now, mostly because it takes more time and effort than I could afford. And posting MRR screenshots only is bragging in public, not building in public.
BUT I still believe in the value of BIP, especially when for a newcomer.
You may find people who genuinely support your journey, and if you're lucky, you might build a decent following on Twitter.
Your customers root for you because of your personal and authentic "brand".
Seasoned founders might reach out and point out what you're doing wrong, avoiding making the same mistakes (I did get a lot of valuable advice from successful founders—to me, this has been the biggest value I get out of BIP)
BUT if you treat it as a marketing channel, it probably won't work. Like others mentioned, it's saturated and you're only attracting the wrong kind of audience.
If I was to start again, I would treat BIP as the sandbox to launch my product: ask for feedback, search for a few early adopters who might benefit from my product but not necessarily my ICP.
[0]: https://ktool.io
[1]: https://www.indiehackers.com/product/ktool
mattgreenrocks|1 year ago
XCSme|1 year ago
I keep sharing my thoughts and what I'm working on. Those posts barely get any impressions, but I don't want to post stuff just to please the algorithm.
j45|1 year ago
Building in public for entrepreneurs as audience porn to -feel good about feeling good is a lot harder unless its a product for them.
To me, it's doesn't always make sense to uncover unmet demand in public. But, my own bias in that sentence is I'm aware of that enough to perhaps know the difference, and I very well still might done it if I was starting out.
It's good to speak to the problems of your clients - building in that public is what can be helpful.
I like the indiehackers community a lot, but there's no shortage of lurkers who will imitate. The goal is getting ahead and staying ahead and leveraging positioning others may never understand.
tchock23|1 year ago
I get that ‘it’s not about the idea - the execution is what matters,’ but why make an already difficult journey that much harder?
breck|1 year ago
I love the discussion. I think you may just have self-biased your Twitter feed, and so to you it looks like the world is building in public, but to 99% of the population it's very rare.
Loved the discussion though, and your portfolio and blog are great.
Here's my user test: https://news.pub/?try=https://www.youtube.com/embed/10SIY3jE...
pipes|1 year ago
Anyway I have an app idea for a very small annoyance in my daily life. Listening to Pieter Levels inspired me to at least try and ship it. But there's no way I'm comfortable with all the other indy hacker shite I'd need to do to, like build a twitter profile etc. My only hope is probably showing it on a sub Reddit and seeing if anyone finds it useful.
Anyway, as I work as a developer, even if it fails, it doesn't matter. I'll learn a lot by doing it.
anonzzzies|1 year ago
surfingdino|1 year ago
binary132|1 year ago
thekevan|1 year ago
Other people can steal your plans and ideas, they can't steal your revenue.
Also, rather than declaring that other people should rethink what they are doing, maybe just reconsider your choice to be involved in it.
Full "build in public" isn't for me, if it matters.
vincentpants|1 year ago
I think there's your first problem right there. I recommend seeking dev communities on more federated social networks. I have found there to be more support and less clout/lore building than on Twitter. And supportive communities ship products!
ilrwbwrkhv|1 year ago
rozenmd|1 year ago
I still build in public (https://maxrozen.com/articles?q=diaries), but spend more of my time on traditional marketing efforts instead.
paxys|1 year ago
TrevorFSmith|1 year ago
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unknown|1 year ago
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laike9m|1 year ago
If you'd like to sponsor my work, feel free to check out an app I developed:
https://xylect.app/
With one-click, Xylect explains your selected text using an AI knowledge engine, no matter which app you're currently using. It's like bringing Perplexity + dictionary to every app.
I'm also on Twitter/X and Mastodon. I'll share more thoughts in the future:
- https://twitter.com/laike9m
- https://mastodon.social/@laike9m
unknown|1 year ago
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mattgreenrocks|1 year ago
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p0nce|1 year ago
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surfingdino|1 year ago
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spondyl|1 year ago
It basically talks about how people will change their reasoning to suit public opinion when they work publically. You might imagine a scientist who gets a public grant and is required to share their findings publically.
In this hypothetical scenario, let's say their findings are required to be explainable to the public at large. The reality is that when you're building anything (whether it's a theory or a product), the reality is that causes and effects are not always clear nor will they ever be as we see with the human body for example.
As such, while we might think imposing transparency would increase trust, the reality is you'll often find ad-hoc justifications for why things are the way they are rather than just saying "We don't know why X or Y".
The author also presented the same ideas as a talk for anyone who prefers video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcEJY61FKIc
axegon_|1 year ago
unknown|1 year ago
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RevEng|1 year ago
Entire communities started up around our product. They communicated publicly with us constantly. Their favorite past times were thinking up wild new features that we absolutely must have and trying to devine what was happening internally by over analyzing everything we said. Many of the community members used the size of their community to try to bully us into doing what they wanted. I personally had several emails telling me I was an idiot and a fraud. We were a victim of our own success.
It's the same fate that every open source developer experiences. As soon as you open yourself up to the world, everybody wants something from you and they want it now. If you already have a mature product with a healthy sales funnel and a clear vision, you can market what you have as you wish. If you're in the middle of creating something and you talk about it with others, they will all want a say in what you create and they will be upset if you don't act on their suggestions.
Now that I'm in a large company but working on a new and exciting project, we have hit the same problem internally - everybody who hears about it wants us to build it to suit them and they are disappointed when we instead try to build something that works for everyone. Any other product we made we never talked about into it was largely built and ready to start selling and we never had that kind of bullying behavior.
Something about being on the early phases of development makes people think you want their suggestions and they get rather upset when you don't build what they have in mind. That's why it's better to keep to yourself while you get the foundations in place, then carefully choose who you discuss it with until it's ready for the world to start buying it.
Veuxdo|1 year ago
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Rayaan22|1 year ago
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