How did you start building in public?
Hey everyone, this is my first post on Indie Hackers. Long time fan of the podcast but thought I'd start contributing and engaging with all of you on the forum.
I've started to build an app that I'd like to build in public. I've set up a ghost blog, I don't really have a Twitter following and would rather spend time developing my app and writing blog posts than building my Twitter following.
I'm wondering how you all started building in public? I know it doesn't have to be a big deal but I'm struggling to think of how to even start introducing my app to people - any ideas?
Don't over think it and "Just Do It"?
-- UPDATE --
Just as an update - I did indeed "Just do it" and here's what I did.
Obligatory plug: https://markrobinson.blog/001-hey-chef/?utm_source=indiehackers
- Set up a Ghost blog on Digital Ocean ($5 per month)
- Set up Mailgun to work with the Ghost Blog (Basically $0 per month)
- Created my first post focusing on an intro that made people want to read more, breaking down of the problem and a clear conclusion of what I'm going to do about it.
- Setup GA
- Next is to share with friends, Slack channel in work and on LinkedIn. Not really sure where else to share yet so as I figure out more I'll add them to the list. Also I'll make utm links so I can see where got the most engagement
I also said to myself that it doesn't matter how you start, it's just about starting. Hardly anyone will read it anyway but getting in to practice is the most important thing.
Hope that helps someone in the future!
The great thing about building in public is that there's no real definition of it. Just post & share what you are comfortable with, wherever you want.
I've only recently started doing it extensively. It took me a lot of effort and it is still uncomfortable from time to time. But its gettng better & easier each time.
I mostly share things on Twitter & my blog. You don't have to have a Twitter following to get started. But you'll probably build one doing so. You can just write blog posts sharing insights, struggles, numbers or behind-the-scenes shots of your products. Then you can still decide to share the same information on Twitter, if you care. And if you don't that's alright as well.
Just start small if you're not comfortable yet. You could write a post about how the idea came to you. What you have done already, that users maybe don't see from the outside. How much time you spent, users you have, revenue, conversion rate... any of these. You don't have to spill secrets if you don't like. For a lot of people its enough to just read about people building things.
Mate great advice - going to work on my first post today and get the ball rolling :) Gotta start somewhere.
Definitely going to be completely open with all the data in terms of users, revenue etc. when I have it.
I'll start focusing on meaningful metrics at an early stage like tracking the "Number of User Tests" and showing how the feedback has contributed to improving the app.
I think I'll also show a "Product Roadmap" of sorts so people can follow along with the provisional (and undoubtedly changing) plan!
Great plan!
"showing how the feedback has contributed to improving the app" - I think that's a perfect topic. Many founders struggle with getting the right kind of feedback and how to extract actionable takeaways. Reading how others do it is always interesting.
Greed feedback! I'll talk to some UX People I know over the next week and see if I can create a helpful post for everyone here.
After reading your post, I think an effective way you can try is to aim to curate some followers on Twitter. It is a very open platform and if your sharing is valuable, people wan to hear from you.
Agree with others, don't overthink, and there is no right way. But one thing you should def think about is the Why and your goals. I think a lot of people just build in public for the sake of it. The better ones actually use build in public to achieve their goals.
E.g. your goal is to create awareness about your app. Get people to visit you.
But you know there is no way you can just spam people with your app. So you start talking about it from all angles and let people discover you. Your goal is to create a following strong enough to send traffic to your app.
After having this goal, then you can break down How to do it, how often to write learnings to share, who should be your target followers.
It is quite a lot of info, overwhelming I know. Happy to help out if you want to chat! I also write out this free guide hoping it can help others get started, you can take a look. https://kevoncheung.com/building-in-public
Just do it! I started Portabella last year with no audience and just blog posts every so often.
Fast forward to now and we have an open startup page, nearly 300 users and a paying customer!
It seems like nothing is happening until it all happens at once I find. Building in public helps to show that
That is a niiiice landing page. Is that built in tailwind css or using tailwind UI? Looks very polished
Congrats on the progress by the way!
Yeah I think you’re right - I’ve started making my first blog post and although I don’t have a landing page yet, I’m keen to share the journey anyway.
Did you post to indie hackers? I’m very conscious of wanting to provide value to everyone around here and not to just promote what I build
Thanks! Yeah was custom tailwindcss up until a week ago when I decided to buy tailwindui. Some things I switched over some I've left custom.
Did I post blogs to Indie Hackers? Occasionally I would mention them yeah. Could have done a better job promoting them but I'm not very confident in my writing ability
Nice job on the site :) Tempted to get TailwindUI but might make my first landing page myself. Always the balance of cost vs. time.
One thing that put me off Tailwind actually was that their designs looked amazing on Desktop, but quite "samey" on mobile. It seemed more optimised for Desktop design (I don't mean responsive wise, I mean strictly speaking design wise)
Definitely, they're just starting up though.
I bought it because it definitely represented a time save to me. > 5 hours of my time so far no doubt.
In a few months TailwindUI will be so awesome, component libraries, full pages, etc. Really looking forward to it.
Yeah that’s true. Part of me wonders if I should just get it so it’s one less thing to focus on.
Will check it out again!
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