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.
August https://t.co/3MbLWEzu88 financial update
— Paul Yacoubian (@PaulYacoubian) September 2, 2022
$8.7m ARR up 20% m/m
Cash burn down 57% m/m
Targeting profitability in Q4
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 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 revenue, user figures, and employee salaries.
The @Buffer team is moving fast these days, we've put in a lot of work in the past year to increase our shipping pace.
— Joel Gascoigne (@joelgascoigne) March 22, 2022
Have you tried some of these new features and improvements? What's your favorite Buffer change, and what don't we have yet that you'd really like to see us add? https://t.co/ozg7wWaLcn
#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.
Anyone interested in giving me feedback on my landing page?
— Ritika Mehta (@_ritikamehta) October 22, 2021
I want to know if the text is enough to understand what the product is about.
Also, I've rebranded Visualist as @trymarked will share more about it in the future.
Thanks in advance. #buildinpublic pic.twitter.com/IGTgXHhCDp
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.
WE DID IT! $1 million in sales ????????????
— Leo Bassam ???????? (@loaibassam) August 16, 2021
With the support of thousands of amazing business owners we worked restlessly on turning our vision into reality. Today, 6 years on we are incredibly proud to launch Plutio out of beta and into the scaling phase. pic.twitter.com/9MTEwMm3ch
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.
New GOAL for @potion_so... ????
— Noah Bragg ???? (@noahwbragg) September 1, 2022
Reach $10k MRR in 7 months!
Here's how ???? pic.twitter.com/t2qTN6Xit6
#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.
Ok, que es FundIt? El nuevo proyecto en el que vengo trabajando y se los conté a varios en la ETHLatam. Es una nueva manera de hacer crowdfunding mediante crypto. Pero que viene a resolver en la pregunta: poder hacerlo desde cualquier parte del mundo sin intermediarios.
— Damián Catanzaro ☕️ (@DamianCatanzaro) August 17, 2022
#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.
Rebrand ??? pic.twitter.com/b2ctnGimMB
— Ali Salah ???? (@alisalahio) July 21, 2022
#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.
I put all my 12-month indie hacking journey into one blog ????https://t.co/zR6UoCS2M1
— Damon Chen (@damengchen) May 2, 2021
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 accountable, get feedback, and grow trust within your community.
Building in public is about transparency and collaboration. Even 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:
- Share your goals with someone. Documenting your journey can help you reflect and determine which parts you want to share with your audience.
- Connect with a community of like-minded people.
- Limit what you share & respect those limits!
- Ask people for feedback to help you refine your ideas & find inspiration.
- Let people know about the challenges or roadblocks you’re facing. Then, share how you overcame or plan to overcome them.
- People are curious about what you’re building. So share the behind-the-scenes of your progress to get them excited about your work.
- Celebrate your wins!
- …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.