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36 Comments

What are some good ways to start out building in public?

Hey Guys!

Both my co-founders & I are in the process of creating a thinktank. Our aim is to try and launch a product every month(MVP).

We really want to try and build all our products in Public. Would appreciate any tips on what's the best way to set a good foundation while building in public.

Thanks!

  1. 1

    Is building in public helpful to drive traffic?

  2. 1

    I am waiting to hear the experiences. Thank you for the thread

  3. 1

    Thank you for making this thread, just what I was wondering about :)

  4. 10

    Twitter is always a great place to start.

    You could start by sharing a weekly or monthly update about the progress of your products.

    It's always a great way to build and audience along the way and keep yourself accountable.

    1. 10

      I dont understand how twitter can be great if you dont already have some followers? I'm also building something but just tweeting about it to a handful of people that never interact with me on twitter seems pointless?

      1. 2

        Upvoting as I have the same question. In my https://twitter.com/emotf
        I have followers but not many in the BIP (mostly startup and investor circles). Does anyone here have experience pivoting their twitter ac to #buildinpublic?

    2. 5

      Also make sure if you tweet something to use the hashtag #makersneakpeek as I have a bot setup that auto retweets them every 15 minutes.

      Also be great to follow the account (I follow back everyone who follows it): https://twitter.com/makersneakpeek

    3. 3

      Twitter gets my vote too. And be sure to put a link to your project in your Twitter bio.

    4. 1

      Thank you for the feedback! Twitter does seem like a great place to start.

  5. 8

    I use YouTube personally. I find social media to be very moment-based tools with less "evergreen" focus. This means unless you're posting all the time, visibility will be tough (assuming your subscriber base is small). In terms of accountability you can't go wrong with those tools though.

    Ultimately, any route of building in public takes a while to catch on so enjoy the journey most of all.

    1. 1

      Oh this is really interesting ...
      Would you do a monthly or weekly check-in?

    2. 1

      Interesting take, youtube could be great for us actually! Will check out your youtube channel soon:)

      Good luck!

  6. 6

    It was my first time building in public the entire September. It was really fun and I'm glad I made the decision. @8am

    I basically leverage Twitter and other community to showcase all my crappy screenshots, tools I used and try to get as much feedback as possible before I launch the product.

    Some example: https://twitter.com/felix12777/status/1307691440391114752

    And the product is now live: https://ventureslist.com/

    1. 1

      Thanks for the example and good luck with your product!

      1. 1

        This is great @felix12777 What are some hashtags you have used when building in public. I need to start and I don't know if I can start just by tweeting without having a following. Hence wondering about hashtags that I can use.

  7. 1

    Hey Daniel this sounds really interesting and also like it might be high stress long-term. How are you incorporating personal wellness into this think tank?

  8. 3

    I've recently started building in public and one of the greatest video I've seen so far it's --> "55 Minutes of Social Media Content Strategy for Entrepreneurs" by Alex Hormozi

    In short:

    1. Start with “My journey and what works for me” = value-based report, instead of expertise. What works for you it does not mean that it will work for others, so you have no proven arguments, you can just share what works for you, so use always "How I" instead of "How to"
    2. You do stuff, then you talk about what you did, you won't be interested if you just write and don't do stuff.
    3. Choose your sweet spot = niche of content, and try to specialize as much as possible to differentiate
    4. Use storytelling
    5. Don't use any ghostwriters, do it yourself, no one will do it better than you
    1. 1

      Thanks for this video, it is is gold!!

  9. 1

    Hey! I'm starting to build in public an AI tool to analyze customer insights and make product decisions based on them. I'd love some insights on where to start! In my past startup, I used Facebook as that's where the audience was. But for this one, I'm a bit more scattered as targeting Product Managers, and founders (or IndieHackers!)

    Any thoughts are welcome!

    Also... Do you share everything? The good, the bad, the uncertainty? Could this detract from future fundraising?

    Thanks!

  10. 3

    I share some of the same fears, but honestly I think you've done about 90% of the hard work by getting started. I think of the unsung benefits of building in public is that you actually have to think about what you are doing and write it down. It's a good point of reflection.

  11. 3

    Inspired by @justalever 's answer, which I relate to as well - just stated today:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1o5Pe3Ke10g

    1. 1

      Hi @oba2311, Thank you for sharing your YouTube channel! I am looking into doing this too, right now. So seeing someone do it before is encouraging.

      A question: In hindsight: Do you have any tips for someone starting it right now? Like what you would like to tell your self from 1,5 years ago?

  12. 3

    The best way to start (if you haven't already) is to talk to your friends about it. Especially people who show interest in it. Notice what interests them and what questions they ask you.

    Then start sharing the interesting content online via Twitter or short blog posts. Do the same thing, look for what content people find interesting and also which groups/communities find your content more interesting.

    Maybe too unspecific, but that's how I have wrapped my head around it!

    1. 1

      Thanks, will take a look into it!

  13. 2

    Check Make.rs https://make.rs . It's a place where makers show the world what they've done to document their journey. (disclaimer: I built it)

  14. 2

    I'd stream on Twitch every day

      1. 1

        Did you do it? I would be very interested to know how it went.

        1. 1

          Hey @cococlouteau,

          My team and I actually did start building out in public. Our first public "building" was actually right here on IH: https://www.indiehackers.com/post/were-3-makers-building-micro-startups-what-should-we-name-ourselves-as-a-collective-c3049e4136 | It wen't pretty well. We got a bunch of traction. We're soon going to start building in public on twitter and we'll be updating our followers daily. However, we won't be using twitch for now. We're sticking to a newsletter, twitter, and a podcast.

  15. 1

    How do you start with very few followers on social media?

  16. 1

    As @marclou posted recently, a YouTube live screensharing is a new way of share your business development!

    I let you the post here:
    https://www.indiehackers.com/post/a-weird-productivity-hack-that-worked-d4ed45215b

  17. 1

    Twitter and Podcast ?
    I was listening for a while, to a podcast that tracked the creation of a SaaS every month. He was creating one SaaS per month, it was a very interesting format

  18. 1

    Blogging then building a user base with it:

    You can start with a blog and to building out the retention and base of like-minded people you can convert your blog's visitors into your FB group members/a subreddit subscriber or in a slack channel.

  19. 1

    Hi, I would like to know how is your thinktank going?

  20. 1

    I'm gearing up to start building an agency in public and will be using Clubhouse for a weekly standup. It may just be me at first, but I'll also be recording this content to publish to additional social platforms.

  21. 1

    https://Micro.blog/w4rner has a decent community, but also ability to syndicate out to Twitter if you later chose.

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