Joshua D'Costa
Growth & Marketing
May 15, 2025
|
5
min
Startups traditionally guard their progress behind closed doors, fearing idea theft or premature scrutiny. However, a growing number of founders are challenging this norm through building in public, a practice of openly sharing product milestones, challenges, and learnings in real time
This shift toward transparency is more than a marketing gimmick, it builds genuine credibility. Companies like Buffer have published everything from revenue figures to team salaries since 2013, demonstrating that openness fosters deeper trust with users and stakeholders
Narrating your journey on social platforms like Twitter, LinkedIn, and Discord, you can invite your audience to invest emotionally in your vision. Indie Hackers member Pieter Levels, who has shared Nomad List’s traffic and revenue data publicly since 2014, credits this openness with growing and securing loyal early adopters.
Source: X
Building in public also accelerates learning. Teams can validate ideas and pivot within days, weeks faster than traditional development cycles, thanks to continuous community feedback
In this guide, we’ll unpack why building in public is transforming how products launch, highlight best practices and show you how to harness community collaboration to ensure your MVP resonates from Day 1.
Why Build in Public?
Transparency Breeds Trust
Revealing your roadmap milestones, sharing code snippets, or candidly discussing setbacks humanizes your brand and builds credibility. When potential users see authentic, real-time updates, rather than polished marketing copy. They’re more likely to believe in your mission and stick around through ups and downs
Early Validation & Iteration
Soliciting community feedback as you build helps you test key assumptions before sinking significant resources into features that might miss the mark. 42% of startups failing because they didn’t meet a real customer need, public-building mitigates risk by gathering data-driven insights early on.
Community as Co-Creators
When brands involve users in product decisions, it leads to higher user satisfaction, as the community actively contributes to shaping feature development.Inviting your audience to vote on roadmap priorities, submit bug reports, or showcase use cases transforms passive observers into active stakeholders.
This two-way engagement not only cultivates loyalty but also generates powerful word-of-mouth marketing, as early contributors become enthusiastic advocates who spread the word organically.
Choosing the Right Social Platforms
Twitter / X & Threads
Twitter / X excels at quick, real‑time updates and short-form storytelling. Its threaded format enables you to break complex topics like a multi‑step development process into digestible posts that encourage retweets and replies.
LinkedIn is the go‑to for professional transparency. Sharing detailed progress reports, reflective posts on lessons learned, and milestone announcements positions you as a thought leader in your niche.
YouTube / TikTok
Video platforms bring your journey to life. Short-form clips like “day in the life” dev logs on TikTok or feature demos on YouTube offer visual context that text alone can’t match.
Use captions, overlays, and direct calls to action to drive watchers back to your landing page or feedback forum.
Discord / Slack
Dedicated community channels on Discord facilitate two‑way conversations in real time. By setting up topic‑specific threads such as “feature requests” or “bug reports” you create a structured environment for users to provide input, ask questions, and help troubleshoot issues collaboratively.
Crafting Your “Build in Public” Narrative
Define Your Pillars by Selecting consistent themes, roadmap updates, customer stories, technical deep dives, or failure post-mortems to guide your content and set audience expectations
Establish a Cadence by Commiting to a regular schedule such as daily dev snippets, weekly progress recaps, or monthly retrospectives to maintain momentum and audience anticipation
Mix honest accounts of challenges with actionable insights or lessons learned, so followers feel both emotionally connected and practically informed
Engaging Your Community for Feedback
Interactive Polls & Surveys can gauge feature interest or priority, giving everyone a voice in your development choices
Host real-time Ask Me Anything events to answer questions, clarify roadmap points, and harvest fresh ideas directly from your audience
Offer select community members exclusive previews in exchange for detailed feedback, generating testimonials and uncovering edge-case issues before full launch
Encourage customers to share “how I use it” stories, demo videos, or feature suggestions, amplifying social proof and enriching your content pipeline
Turning Feedback into Action
Keep your product roadmap in a public space (e.g., Notion or GitHub) and update it whenever you receive new community requests. So contributors see exactly where their ideas stand.
Organize short, time‑boxed development sprints focused on community‑requested features. After each sprint, demo the changes via a livestream or video update, gather fresh feedback, and feed it into the next sprint’s planning.
Whenever a user’s suggestion becomes a feature, publicly credit them in a changelog entry, tweet, or blog post. Share quotes, screenshots, or stories that showcase how their input shaped the product, reinforcing the value of their collaboration.
After implementing a community‑driven update, follow up directly with contributors and in your public channels to show the impact of their feedback. Use polls or quick surveys to measure satisfaction with the new feature and collect ideas for further improvements.
Measuring Success & Adjusting Your Strategy
Track likes, comments, shares, video watch time, and active participants in chat channels to gauge community enthusiasm
Analyze sentiment from comments, DMs, and forum posts to identify recurring themes or concerns that numbers alone might miss
Monitor feature adoption rates, bug-report volumes, and Net Promoter Score (NPS) changes to connect community input to tangible product outcomes
Final Thoughts
Building in public accelerates growth, aligns your product with real user needs, and forges a loyal community that champions your success.
Choose one platform today like X and tweet a behind-the-scenes update or start a Discord channel and invite your audience to shape your journey.
Join our community on Discord and share your first “build in public” post!
