Building in public is weirdly uncomfortable… but necessary.
Lately I’ve realized that building something isn’t the hardest part
explaining why you’re building it is.
You start with assumptions.
Then users politely destroy them.
Then you rebuild slightly smarter, slightly humbler.
Right now, I’m focusing less on “launch hype” and more on:
listening to real feedback
watching how people actually use things
unlearning what I thought users wanted
Still early, still learning, still figuring things out.
If you’re building something too:
What’s one assumption you had that turned out to be completely wrong?
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Thought people wanted power.
They actually wanted clarity.
Big lesson.
So true. Power sounds attractive, but clarity is what actually gets used.
I think that’s a realization every builder arrives to at some point. Wasn’t different for me either, at the beginning of my journey I had this great idea, something that I thought would surely be succesful, so I didn’t even bother validating and jumped straight to work. I built my project for 3 months, getting some positive feedback from other builders on reddit, carefully polishing the experience, all that. Come to find out, my actual target audience didn’t really care about it. Lesson learned, validate first, build after
Been there as well. Early feedback from other builders can feel like validation, but it’s not the same as real user pull. That gap between “people like the idea” and “people actually need it” is a tough lesson.
Validate first, build after sounds obvious now, but most of us only learn it by doing it wrong once.
To answer your question - my biggest wrong assumption was thinking users wanted more features.
We kept adding capabilities thinking "more = better." Turns out users were overwhelmed. They didn't want a Swiss Army knife - they wanted something that just worked for their specific use case.
The shift from "what else can we add?" to "what can we remove while still solving the core problem?" was humbling but transformative.
Building in public definitely helps catch these blind spots earlier. When you share your thinking openly, people aren't shy about telling you where you're off track.
The assumption that more features equals more value is such an easy trap to fall into. That shift from “what else can we add?” to “what can we remove and still solve the problem?” is where clarity usually shows up.
Building in public makes those blind spots surface earlier uncomfortable, but way cheaper in the long run.
Exactly - "cheaper in the long run" is the key framing. The embarrassment of sharing half-baked ideas publicly is nothing compared to the cost of building the wrong thing for months in private.
I've started thinking of building in public as paid debugging for product direction. You're essentially crowdsourcing the "wait, have you considered..." moments that would otherwise hit you post-launch.
That’s a great way to put it. The small discomfort of sharing early really is cheaper than quietly going deep in the wrong direction. I like the idea of “paid debugging” you surface those blind spots sooner, while they’re still easy to change.
Exactly. The cost of being wrong early is so much lower than the cost of being wrong late. And the feedback loop with building in public creates this natural pressure to stay honest with yourself about what's working and what isn't.
Good luck with what you're building - sounds like you've got the right mindset for the journey.
Thanks that means a lot. Building in public has surfaced things I probably wouldn’t have noticed otherwise. Still early, but the feedback so far has already changed how I’m thinking about what’s worth continuing.
That's exactly the right signal - when feedback changes how you think about what's worth continuing, you know you're getting real value from the process. Most people share updates but don't actually let the feedback reshape their direction.
Keep at it. The early stage is uncomfortable but also when you have the most flexibility to pivot.
That’s a great way to frame it. Letting feedback actually change direction is the hard part, but also where the real learning seems to happen. Appreciate the encouragement.
And that's the real test - whether you let it actually change direction or just collect feedback without acting on it. Most people do the latter because it's safer.
The fact that you're already thinking about "what's worth continuing" vs. defending every decision is a good sign. That's where the leverage is.
Exactly right. The gap between "I heard you" and "I changed because of what I heard" is where most builders get stuck. It's almost a sunk cost thing - the more you've built, the harder it is to let feedback reshape it.
The builders who navigate that well seem to hold their work loosely enough to change it, but tightly enough to still care about quality. That balance is tricky.
That’s a good point. Collecting feedback is easy letting it actually change direction is where the real work starts.
Wherever we go, people will always lead you forward, the main thing is to find these people!
Absolutely. Finding the right people early makes all the difference the ones who are honest, not just encouraging.
Those conversations tend to shape direction far more than metrics or assumptions ever do.