How can build in public benefit the startups?

Elif Duran
48 replies
🚀 Building in public is a growing trend among SaaS startups, allowing them to share their development process, progress, and challenges with the public. 👀 I am curious in hearing about your experience. How has it helped build trust and credibility with potential customers and investors? What are the risks and challenges associated with this approach, and how do you manage them?

Replies

Colin Mathews
I think it depends a lot on the market you're in as far as if it will help you build trust with customers. I think in a lot of cases the people interested in your build-in-public journey may not be the same people that are buying your product. There are definitely risks to building in public, but for me it's been pretty easy to side-step them. For instance, when I talk about feature development I don't get into the difficulty or talk about how it was built. I share designs, but I usually do it when development is coming shortly thereafter. Once your app is out there people can copy it anyway, so as long as I'm not months ahead of myself with the designs I share I feel pretty good. I should also say that I'm a bootstrapper, which I think building in public is more suited for. If I decided to seek investors it would be a a whole other deal and probably much more limited in what I would share. 😅
Roberto Gómez - Scalar.so
It can help you build trust with customers and investors. When people can see what you're doing and how you're doing it, they might be more likely to trust you and want to work with you.
Elif Duran
BeforeSunset AI
@roberjet Exactly. What do you think about the competition, should companies which build in public be worried about sharing too much information?
Roberto Gómez - Scalar.so
@elifduran 100%. Everything has its pros and cons and I think it's naive to think that there are no cons such as giving it too much to competitors. There are things like price wars in which, if you know for example how many is in the bank of your competitor, you have all the information.
Muath Atwan
Sharing a startup’s progress and journey in my thoughts can increase transparency and build trust with potential customers and investors
suryakant yadav
This question is interesting! I think the answer depends on why one would want to build in public in the first place. If one thinks of the pros and cons outlined in the question, they can be traced back to the fear of the unknown. Hence, if one is clear about one's why, building in public is just an approach that should be leveraged to achieve identified objectives.
Mark Pavlyukovskyy
Building in public is a super all-in-one approach for Indie hackers and small products. The thing you need to be careful about - be agile and stick with your community. Otherwise the community can cancel you.
Elif Duran
BeforeSunset AI
@mark_pavlyukovskyy Do you think is there any chance if you are so stick with your community, it can drag you down?
PJ Garcia✪ 🧪
Building in public is openly sharing the process of creating and developing a startup or a parallel project with the company itself, from the idea to the final product. Some benefits of this practice are: - Build trust and credibility with potential customers, investors and partners. - Obtain early feedback and validation from users and the community. - Learn from other entrepreneurs and experts who share their experiences and advice. - Create a personal brand and a network of contacts that can support the growth of the startup. - Differentiate yourself from the competition and attract the attention of the media. Building in public and perseverance, in addition to good ideas, would be the perfect recipe to successfully promote a startup or any type of company! 👍💪🚀
V. Stoica
Building in public can be a great tool for startups to build an engaged audience, gain visibility and test out new ideas. It allows startups to open up the creative process and engage their community in the development of new ideas. By being open about the progress of your startup, you can generate interest, acquire feedback, and create a foundation for building a meaningful relationship with your audience. Additionally, by sharing projects publicly, startups can better identify possible investors and spot potential collaboration opportunities. Tap the link for more information @elifduran ➡️ https://www.wearehuman.cc/articl...
Zack Anselm
Therr for Business - Ads Orchestrator
I think it helps most by garnering feedback and finding direction as you build. It saves a ton of time. Some risks may include a bad first impression or competitors copying features.
Shaur ul Asar
Building in public is a new approach to entrepreneurship that involves sharing the progress of a startup with the public. This can be done through social media, blog posts, and other online platforms. Here are some ways in which it can benefit startups: - By sharing their progress with the public, startups can gain a larger audience and potentially attract new customers and investors. - Building in public allows startups to connect with their audience and build a community around their product or service.
Edun Kerry
Ultimate Notion Home Manager
Ultimate Notion Home Manager
Bulb in public lets you get feedback fast and in real time
K Denesh
Clear communication and product information and knowledge and Clear details and information and patience and manner if you have this mind you don't need any challenges or risks
Daniel Dixon
Export & Sync for Trello
Export & Sync for Trello
I think in general people have found that just launching a product doesn't bring users on it's own. The SaaS market and tech in general is crowded, so you may have the best technical product, but if no one knows about it, it will lose out to a more "out there" competitor. Having a community grow with you as your product is built means that when you launch or release a new update, there is already a base who is genuinely interested in what you're doing. Community, just like Customer Success (which aren't part of the actual product) has become a differentiator for businesses.
Timi Lab
Building in public can be a great strategy to generate interest in your work and receive valuable feedback from others. Sharing your well-planned ideas may even attract your first user. Just remember to be cautious about sharing confidential information that could benefit competitors or other startups with similar ideas in the market.
Shushant Lakhyani
The best part about building in public is that you build an audience, get active customer feedback and build a community of people who love your product.
Morgan Kung
I really enjoy building in public because it allows me to share my experiences and connect with people from all over the world. It's amazing to interact with users or potential users, founders, and marketers which can help me quickly validate whether some of my ideas are feasible, or just foolish ideas. It's so rewarding to hear the differing perspectives on a single issue. And build in public is a great way to connect with our current and potential users, listen to them, and get to know their thoughts so that my team and I could agilely adjust our products to better meet the real market demands for quick user growth and higher user conversion rates. Of course, there are some risks involved in building in public, such as attracting copycats or exposing our weaknesses and mistakes. It can also be more stressful than ever, but in my opinion, the benefits of building in public far outweigh the risks, especially in the early stages of a startup. Like to know more about my take on BIP and how I put it into practice?📌Check it out at: https://gemoo.com/blog/pros-and-...
Tanzirul Huda
Building in public has increased transparency and gained trust with customers and investors. Risks include revealing sensitive information, which can be managed with open communication and strategic sharing.
Deniz Sutaş
Let me begin with this famous quote: execution is king. Way too many entrepreneurs assign too much value to their ideas; fact is millions probably have the same idea, but only a handful will actually do the work and see the project through. I don't think secrecy should be a cause for concern. In addition, building in public leaves more room for teams to pivot when they should. Along the way, they would be receiving active feedback and learn more about their space. Waiting until the development is over, and then realizing some features should have been slightly different would be a bummer for all entrepreneurs. Finally, building in public is a great lead magnet. Plenty of people will use your product simply out of curiosity, and those enthusiastic users are more likely to be your product champions.
Richard Gao
Basically just marketing It's really helped grow my twitter, which helps promote my startup evoke-app.com It also enhances your PH launch
mosh malcom
Building in public is wait impressive in which a great tools helps startups to build angaged audience,gain visibility and test out new ideas that build something cool out of space and on a creative side...