Build in public, the honest playbook

Building in public keeps working for a structural reason: trust is the scarcest input in buying software, and watching someone build is the fastest way to develop it. By the time you launch, your audience has watched the decisions, the setbacks, the real numbers — they've done the due diligence a landing page can't fake.

It's also the only channel where the work is the marketing. The build log is the content; the content is the distribution. Every other channel requires making something and then separately promoting it — build in public does both at once.

The trap of build-in-public is optimizing for the numbers the platform shows you. Likes and follower counts are visible, so founders chase them — and end up with an audience of other founders who like their posts and never buy. The metrics that predict revenue are quieter.

The build-in-public content that compounds is specific and slightly uncomfortable to share — because specificity is what makes it unfakeable.

The two failure modes: performative transparency (sharing vanity metrics to look successful — the audience can smell it) and build-in-public cosplay (spending more time narrating than building). The content is the exhaust of the work. If the work isn't interesting enough to share, share less and build more — the ratio should never flip.

And the last trap: building in public with nowhere for the audience to go. A warm audience plus a dead-end landing page is just a fan club. The interest should land on something permanent — a product to try, a listing that ranks — so the accumulation of trust converts into accumulation of users.