It's probably time to rethink "Building in public"

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).

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.

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.

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...

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.

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.

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.

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’d like to have heard some perspective from people actively participating in this and how their experiences have been

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.

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.

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.

I guess this is what kids with rich parents whos trust fund hasnt matured yet do to kill time nowdays?

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...

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

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.

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, 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)_/¯

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

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 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 get that ‘it’s not about the idea - the execution is what matters,’ but why make an already difficult journey that much harder?

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...

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.

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.

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!

I still build in public (https://maxrozen.com/articles?q=diaries), but spend more of my time on traditional marketing efforts instead.

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

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

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.