Building in Public

The majority of founders are secretive as they incubate and develop their idea and product. When they're finally ready to launch, they make some big deal about going public and then continue to operate in near secrecy in fear of helping competitors, damaging relationships, and most importantly, being vulnerable.

A new set of entrepreneurs are taking the opposite approach. They're building in public, and it's working. By sharing the realistic ups and downs, they're building a community of people that appreciate their vulnerability, and want to support even if the product has flaws. This is powerful for the business, but I think it's even more powerful for future entrepreneurs. They're getting an inside look at individuals who are struggling to get their first sale, are building great products off Zapier and no-code platforms, and are making up random pricing structures. You can't get these types of lessons in college or an MBA. The world needs more entrepreneurs, and I hope this trend continues.

The obvious question for me: why don't I build in public? It's something I'm thinking a lot about and I have a few reasons (most of which are bad justifications):

• I'm busy and this would be another thing for me to do
• It's harder to do when you have a number of employees and you can't be as transparent as you'd like given in inter-company dynamics
• My business, WeHero, was recently bought and I'm not sure the investors would want me broadcasting things to the world
• Of the other projects I'm involved in, which one would I focus on?

I want to do more building in public to help inspire future entrepreneurs, but I need to build the right structure and do it at the right time. I'd love to pick a single project and focus on it for 3-6 months and do 2-3 videos per week around what I'm working on and what I've learned. However, the timing doesn't seem quite right.

Do you think building in public is the future or a weird trend?