The cons of building in public?

If you are building in public with only the goal of marketing your product, then it will be an unpleasant task that feels like homework. I think this can cause founders to burn out easily.

If you view building in public as a way to learn to become a better content creator, then it can be an exciting learning opportunity and will give energy rather than take away energy.

I think a lot of people are in the first category, and it can become very draining if so.

If your target market isn't indie hackers, then it may result in obsessing over the wrong audience for your business.

Mostly copying. Saw a big % of companies where they announced their MRR publicly get copied just for that reason.

Required time
Wasted sanity

There are a lot of pros to building a product in public, but there are also some cons you should watch out for.

The first thing to know is that it takes a different kind of confidence and self-assurance than you might expect. Building a product in public means being on display, and if you're not ready to roll with the punches, it can be pretty brutal. You'll get unsolicited advice from strangers, and everyone will have an opinion about every decision you make. Most of it will be constructive—but some of it won't be. You'll have to decide when to listen and when to move on.

The second thing to know is that you might have some trouble staying on track. When you're building a product in public, people will notice if you don't deliver on your promises quickly enough—and they'll let you know they're disappointed! Fortunately, this also translates into knowing exactly what's important to your customer base right now, so you can adjust as needed.

Third, when you build a product in public, you give your competitors the opportunity to copy your ideas before they're fully formed. If they see your product while it's in development, they may be able to steal your idea and get their own product out the door before yours is ready.

Another downside of building a product in public is that it can be harder to make changes to a product once people have seen it and started talking about it online. If you make a change after people have started using your idea, you may alienate them or confuse them.

Need to be on social media = time sunk! Need to be very careful with time allocated otherwise, might get into rabbit holes and over-consumption.

• Copycat (competitors can take your learnings and run with them)
• Easier for standard pricing, but not so easy for custom pricing
• Time to create content + interact with the audience
• Communication and alignment challenge when it is not a solo-founder anymore

It can take quite a bit of additional time.

I don't think it's as likely, but your competitors might also be able to learn what you're doing and undercut you.

Not delivering what you promised, I can disappoint your audiance.

Often, it's a big weight on my shoulder, to be honest.

When you build in public, basically you say: "Yes, I can come up with some interesting content constantly, every day." After a while, it becomes a burden to show up every day and put out engaging content.

You'll also face trolls and negative feedback which can be frustrating.

Sometimes I feel I created another job for myself where I have to keep 6500+ people interested.

i am doing it for float. Find it quite cool to do

You can fall into the trap of communicating more with indie hackers than actual potential customers.

• Can take time away from building the product/talking to users/investing in relevant marketing activities
• No guarantee you will grow your audience
• Not always the relevant path (e.g. if you're enterprise-focused then building in public is probably not right for you)
• Public accountability which can add more pressure, especially when you f**k up (see this Tweet about an unhappy customer of DesignJoy)

Your audience might not be on twitter

waste of time