i found a potential partner through an IH comment — the unexpected upside of building in public

i posted about my SEO scanning tool. someone commented about their WCAG accessibility checker. turns out our tools scan the same DOM but check different things.

combining them into one report — SEO issues + accessibility violations — would give agencies a single scan instead of running two tools.

the conversation started in the comments of a random IH post. no DMs, no cold emails. just two people who happened to be building related things and noticed it.

what made this work

• building in public means people can see what you're actually working on
• commenting on other people's posts puts your work in front of relevant people
• the combination is more valuable than either tool alone (agencies get one report instead of two)

we're now talking about prototyping a combined scan. if it works, the pitch to agencies becomes way easier — one tool that checks everything.

the lesson

stop thinking of IH posts as marketing. think of them as searchable proof of what you're building. the right person finds it when they need it.

has anyone else found a partner or collaborator through IH comments?