Sharing a private community for #BuildingInPublic
Hello everyone.
Ever since I published the Building in Public Definitive Guide in Feb 2021, I've been lucky enough to have lots of people around me who are interested in an authentic way of sharing their journey.
It is super nice to know that there are quite a lot of people who don't want to growth hack, but want to use their voice and openness to attract like-minded people.
So for the last 2 months, I've been piloting Public Lab, a private community dedicated to Building in Public with 24 builders. 💪
Intentionally kept it small so we could focus on creating a culture and foundation, now I think it is time to find other people who care about the same things.
HOW DID IT START?
We started as an 8-person Twitter DM group. We were sharing our learnings building our full-time or side projects.
All of us were interested in growing (obviously 😅), but not in hacky ways. We much preferred building an authentic voice & image.
WHAT IS PUBLIC LAB?
And it evolved to become a community dedicated to #BuildingInPublic, which essentially means audience building in an authentic and transparent way.
We want a safe space where we can share, inspire, and support one another.
WHAT HAS BEEN HAPPENING?
The last 2 months, honestly, were a lot of "figuring out" for me as a community builder.
"How can I create more values for our members" was on my mind all the time.
Thankfully, I have a good group of founding members! See them here:
SHARING / INSPIRING
We share good content we find online or on Twitter about the 3 key pillars we care about most:
- the Building in Public mindset - overcoming fear of being public, impostor syndrome, and insecurity
- Audience Building
- Storytelling & Writing
WE TALK ABOUT WHY AND HOW
Building in Public is simple: be your authentic self + share your lesson learned in the journey. But, we still want to ask: WHY do we want to do it?
Are we being ourselves? Is it helping us grow?
Then we figure HOW to do it.
I SHARE WHAT I'VE LEARNED
I've gone through the process to find out who I am, what I stand for, how I start to develop my online voice etc.
So I create short videos to share them back with the community.
MORE IMPORTANTLY, LEARN FROM OTHERS
I'm grateful to have amazing people who are willing to share transparently their stories, approaches, and tactics.
The community is not there to learn from me. We want to learn from these guests because they're real examples.
CROWDSOURCING
It is not as valuable if everything is decided by me.
For example, if our community session is Q&A between me and the guest. Or I decide who to invite.
I try to balance having my own direction and taking inputs from the members. It is hard but worth it.
TIME TO WELCOME
I've been keeping it a gated community because I want dedicated & engaging members. I also want to take time to learn and tweak.
With the foundations set up, I think the Public Lab community is now ready to welcome a new batch of members.
IS THIS FOR YOU?
If you're building something, if you love sharing, if you love to stay true to yourself, if you like to give and exchange, then yes.
If you're looking for a way to hack your growth, our community might not be a good fit for you.
And I know while sharing authentically is appreciated, "Building in Public" this mindset or approach is not for everyone. It is more helpful for certain types of people like indie hackers, creators, solopreneurs who have more need to develop a personal brand & voice and an audience.
So it might not be for you, and that's okay.
IF YOU WANT TO JOIN
I don't believe in letting everyone join. It'll destroy everything our founding members have worked for.
If you're interested, u can fill in this form: http://bit.ly/publiclab-app
$5/mo or $45/yr for the first 100 members. We have 55 seats open at the moment.
IF THIS IS NOT FOR YOU
I'd appreciate it if you can tag or share with a friend who might enjoy a community like this in his/her journey. Thanks a lot for spreading the word! 🙏🙏
