10 Profiles of Founders Building in Public

Want to work with the support of a community from day one? Find out which founders are building in public right now.

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It’s one thing to bootstrap your project within your own four walls. It’s another to code in full view of everyone. However, it’s quite another to work with the support of a great community from the start. That’s why building in public is so important to the entrepreneurial sphere, because it allows you to show your progress while also giving others an opportunity to learn from your mistakes and successes.

In today’s post, we list 10 founders who are building in public and sharing their progress with the community. Let’s get into it!

Founders Who Build in Public

Join us to explore what it means to build your startup in the public eye. And find out which great founders are doing it now 👇

#1: Paul Yacoubian, Co-Founder & CEO at Copy.AI

Paul Yacoubian is the co-founder of CopyAI, an AI-powered copywriting app. Given that it helps create original content for websites, social media and blog posts, copywriters, marketers, and entrepreneurs have used this tool to save time. In addition, it helps improve the quality of their work.

Also, the app is constantly updating and adding new features. So if you’re a user, you can stay connected in a private community to keep up with the latest trends.

Twitter is the best platform to find your first users. There’s a domino effect that happens, as you’re publishing content that people are generally curious about. So when you post it, you’re basically sharing your journey with other people.

There are many features that make Twitter a great platform for building in public. Yacoubian highlights the possibility of “building a one-on-one bond with other users” and the “lack of filters” between the emitter and the people or users they’re trying to reach.

#2: Monica Lent, Founder of Affilimate & Blogging for Devs

Practicing transparency (aka building in public) can be very beneficial to setting and achieving your goals. However, it’s also important to limit what you share and respect those limits.

Building in public is not all or nothing. You can apply a build-in-public mindset without necessarily going full open startup and still get the benefits.

Monica Lent, founder of Affillimate & Blogging for Devs

Blogging For Devs

Blogging for Devs is a community for blog writers with +350 members who’re looking for new career opportunities, and help with a strategy to monetize their blog. If you’re looking to engage in conversations with colleagues or finding collaborators for your projects, this one’s the group for you!

#3: Joel Gascoigne, Co-Founder & CEO at Buffer

When talking about transparency, there’s one name that can’t be missing. That’s Joel Gascoigne, co-founder and CEO at Buffer, one of the first startups to introduce the ‘building in public’ concept.

In 2013, Buffer published its culture deck, where it declared transparency as one of its values. Over the years, they shared revenueuser figures, and employee salaries.

#4: Ritika Metha, Founder of Marked

Ritika Metha, the founder of Marked, developed a tool that helps users visualize embedded items in the form of a playlist. However, while the product was still in beta and had only around 90 active users, she sold it for $10,000.

On Twitter, she spoke openly about her product-building road. In addition, she gave her audience regular updates on what was going on with her product. Therefore, building in public helped her build a community, get users, and network with colleagues.

#5: Leo Bassam, Founder of Plutio

Plutio is an all-in-one solution for businesses. Through Leo Bassam‘s app, more than 16,900 businesses have a platform where it’s easier to create proposals, send contracts, manage tasks, track time, chat, and even get paid.

Bassam built his product in public via Twitter, inviting the audience into the story and making people part of the building process. As a result, users are not only part of the success story. But also the learning curve and the inevitable mistakes along the way, in the end, building more loyal clients and customers!

#6: Arvid Kahl, Co-Founder of FeedbackPanda.com

Arvid Khal is the founder of FeedbackPanda, an online teacher productivity SaaS startup he created with his partner, Danielle Simpson. Although he then decided to sell his product, Arvin became a vocal promoter of bootstrapping and building in public, sharing his journey on multiple platforms.

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#7: Noah Bragg, Founder of Potion

In 2020, Noah Bragg announced on Twitter that he’d start building Potion, a website building tool, in public. Since then, he has created more than 70 update videos, gained more than 6,600 followers, and grown Potion’s MRR to $4,169.

#8: Damián Catanzaro, Founder of Cafecito & CTO at FundIt

Damián Catanzaro founded Cafecito, a crowdfunding platform based in Argentina. Regularly, Catanzaro shared the platform’s building and growth via Twitter. Now, he’s embarked on a new project, a crowdfunding platform that uses crypto called FundIt.

#9: Ali Salah, Founder of Instatus

The Egyptian entrepreneur Ali Salah‘s the founder of Instatus, a tool that helps other startups and business founders efficiently build status pages.

He shares his building journey both on Twitter and in a monthly newsletter he sends his subscribers with behind the scene updates on how he’s building and growing Instatus. He also uses his Twitter platform to collect feedback from users and launch other products within the brand.

#10: Damon Chen, Founder of Testimonial

Damon Chen launched Testimonial two years ago, in 2020. The product consists of a tool that helps users collect text and video testimonials from customers with no need for a developer or website hosting. It started as a side hustle. But the platform already has 500 global customers. Damon not only shares his building journey on Twitter but also does on Testimonial’s blog posts.

Frequently Asked Questions About Building in Public

Building in public is a practice that allows entrepreneurs and startup founders to share their progress with their audience and potential customers. As a result, it’s a powerful way to stay accountableget feedback, and grow trust within your community.

 

Building in public is about transparency and collaborationEven so, it’s about showing people who you are as a founder, what your company does and what it stands for. And it’s about inviting feedback and interacting with people who are interested in what you’re doing!

To start building in public, you can follow these simple steps:

  1. Share your goals with someone. Documenting your journey can help you reflect and determine which parts you want to share with your audience.
  2. Connect with a community of like-minded people.
  3. Limit what you share & respect those limits!
  4. Ask people for feedback to help you refine your ideas & find inspiration.
  5. Let people know about the challenges or roadblocks you’re facing. Then, share how you overcame or plan to overcome them.
  6. People are curious about what you’re building. So share the behind-the-scenes of your progress to get them excited about your work.
  7. Celebrate your wins!
  8. …and share your failures too.

As opposed to building in stealth mode, building in public helps you validate your idea and invite your audience into your project’s story. Therefore, you’ll probably be able to create something perfectly fitting to your audience’s needs by holding it in front of them on several occasions and receiving feedback.

It’s not about individual posts, but about telling a story. So when you finally launch your product, your audience will see it’s been in the making by looking back at your Twitter history. Somehow, a story of consistency creates a higher level of trust and loyalty.

💡 Don’t expect the audience to come to you! Instead, you can use #buildinpublic to connect with like-minded people and start building a community on Twitter.

To conclude, building in public means you can learn faster and make better decisions because you get constant feedback from real users while using your product or service.

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Picture of Gaston Levy

Gaston Levy

I have more than 10 years of experience in user acquisition and digital marketing. Main interests: Communities, No-Code, Bootstrapping, Remote Working and Open Startups. Now building Unita, the best and most complete directory of communities.