On Building in Public
Sharing your work before it's ready is uncomfortable. It's also the fastest way to learn.
I shipped my first side project in 2019 and told no one. I was afraid it wasn't good enough. It wasn't — but that wasn't the point.
Building in public means sharing your process, not just your outcomes. It means posting about what you're working on before it's done, writing about what you're learning while you're still confused, and being okay with people seeing the messy middle.
Why it's hard
The instinct to wait until something is polished is a form of self-protection. If no one sees it until it's ready, no one can judge the rough version. But this logic is backwards.
The rough version is where the most learning happens. It's also where feedback is most useful — before you've committed fully to an approach.
What you actually get
Better judgment. Explaining what you're building to someone else — even a hypothetical audience — forces you to articulate your reasoning. Half-formed ideas become concrete. Weak assumptions become obvious.
Compounding audience. People follow journeys, not launches. If you only share finished work, you miss the people who would have been interested in following along.
Accountability. Saying "I'm building X" publicly creates a small commitment. It's surprisingly motivating.
What building in public isn't
It's not a marketing strategy. If you're treating it as one, people can tell, and it stops working.
It's not a replacement for shipping. Sharing process is good. Sharing endless process without outcomes is not.
Start smaller than you think is reasonable. One tweet, one paragraph, one screenshot. See what happens.