Build Your SaaS in Public: Leveraging Vulnerability for Growth

Victoria Rudi
May 11, 2022
⌚ 20 min read

→ Your growth practice

Share your entrepreneurial journey WHILE building your product. Grow your audience based on what you’re sharing long BEFORE launching your product.

→ Quick explanation

Transform your entrepreneurial and product-building experience into educational/entertaining content people want to consume. In other words, build your SaaS company in public by sharing things such as:

  • Growth milestones
  • Challenges
  • Failures
  • Lessons
  • Insights
  • Systems and growth frameworks
  • Company stories
  • Growth goals
  • Relevant screenshots
  • And more

→ Definitions

📓 Build in public: Documenting and sharing the process of creating something. This something can be anything from a SaaS company to a book.

📓 Stealth Startups: Stealth startups avoid public attention. Some founders build stealth startups to hide information from competitors or — as part of a marketing strategy — to manage their public image.

→ Your growth opportunities

Building in public will help you gather an audience around your persona, brand, and/or product. This immediate, non-intermediated access to an audience will allow you to:

  • Attract signups for your product waiting list.
  • Test your beta version.
  • Validate your product ideas.
  • Collect valuable feedback.
  • Get support for your launch on Product Hunt.
  • Attract your first users/paying customers.
  • Get your first testimonials for social proof.
  • Create multiple marketing opportunities, such as getting invited to podcasts, virtual events, and YouTube shows
  • Foster two-way communication. Content marketing is great. However, people will rarely stop and comment or engage in a conversation with the article author. Building in public, though, puts a face on your brand, making you more reachable. People will engage more with you, send you messages on social media, and comment to support or ask questions. This two-way communication will help you strengthen your connection with possible product prospects and fans.
  • Build trust by showing up consistently. And as Adobe’s 2021 Future of Marketing Research Series reveals, consumers show they trust a brand by: Making more purchases (71%), Recommending to friends (61%), Joining a loyalty program (41%), Posting positive reviews or comments on social media (40%).
  • Create the flywheel effect. As Paul Yacoubian, founder of Copy.ai, highlights, you’ll get more followers every time you launch something new if you prioritize adding value to your “build in public” community.
  • Increase antifragility. Having an audience makes you antifragile. Just think about it: even if your first or second SaaS business fails, you’ll still have an audience eager to follow you and try your next SaaS product. Building in public and growing an audience will give you immediate access to beta users, idea validators, and promoters.

Building in public will also generate secondary benefits, such as:

  • Keep yourself motivated and accountable. Whether it’s a side hustle or a full-time endeavor, building a SaaS company comes with the struggle of managing yourself and your input. In some cases, you may slack off, but not when you regularly update your audience. When you feel accountable, you’re extra motivated to put in the work.
  • Get over the need to be perfect. When you’re committed to updating an audience on your progress, you’re getting more comfortable with not being perfect and sharing things as they are.
  • Connect with like-minded people. When you don’t have an audience, the best way to connect with like-minded people is by opening up about your process. This way, you can create unexpected friendships and grow a real community.

→ How does it work? 

Founders experience a lack of marketing momentum when launching a new SaaS product. As a result:

  • They spend at least as much time & resources on marketing as they spent building the product.
  • Since marketing requires time to derive results, this sequential approach (product first, marketing later) will lead to:
  • Burning the company resources fast: Considering how over-crowded and over-competitive each SaaS vertical, horizontal, and niche are, it will take a bigger budget to break through the online noise, grabbing people’s attention.
  • Driving inconsistent revenue: It will take time to build momentum, acquire leads or users, convert them into paying customers, and grow consistently.

*Note: A sequential approach to marketing may work if you’re building a side hustle or project. Since you’re keeping the operations small and your financial well-being doesn’t depend directly on your company’s growth, you can take time to launch a micro-product and then start building an audience, growing your endeavor gradually and steadily.

Why do most founders build a product first and do marketing later?

  • Wishful thinking. Founders may trick themselves into believing that acquiring leads, users, and paying customers won’t be so hard.
  • Programmer thinking. Some founders with a tech background may think about sequential tasks, such as: “When X, then Y,” or “When I launch the product, I’ll start promoting it.”
  • Stealth mode. Some founders won’t talk about their product/process before launch because they’re afraid others may steal their ideas and strategies.

The lack of an audience will slow down a company’s growth considerably. In some cases, companies will have enough resources to build a product, yet almost nothing to invest in marketing and drive sales. This thing alone will put at risk the very existence of the entire company.

Thriving SaaS leaders, though, focus on building in public and growing an audience WHILE developing the product and long after launching it. They do that by:

  • Sharing their entrepreneurial journey.
  • Publishing their lessons and mistakes.
  • Talking about the growth goals and KPIs.
  • Being transparent about the company revenue.
  • Open up about personal struggles associated with building a business.
  • And more.

► Quick note: You’ll find it easier to build in public if you’re bootstrapping. If you have investors, you may encounter a certain level of censorship, as you won’t be able to share everything you want. Or, your investors may be against building in public altogether.

→  Case examples

>> Gumroad by Sahil Lavingia

👉 Sahil Lavingia started Gumroad with a 2011 tweet that became a build-in-public classic.

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👉 In 2019, Gumroad held its first open board meeting with over a hundred participants.

YouTube Screenshot

👉 Over the years, Sahil kept the Gumroad board meetings open. Everyone can access them via YouTube.

👉 Sahil is also writing build-in-public articles. Although it may be one article per year, these posts are extremely valuable and detailed. Sahil’s most recent article, published in January 2021, is titled “No Meetings, No Deadlines, No Full-Time Employees.” This post describes the Gumroad operations.

>> Tally by Marie Martens and Filip Minev

👉 Marie Martens (@MarieMartens) and Filip Minev (Filip Minev) are proactive in sharing how they’re growing Tally, an online form builder.

👉 Tally’s founders are building their company in public by:

Tally Screenshot

>> Upvoty by Mike Slaats

👉 Mike Slaats is leveraging Twitter and Instagram to build Upvoty in public. Mike is active in sharing things such as:  

  • Business stats and growth
  • Challenges
  • Books to read
  • Entrepreneurial lessons
  • New projects
Twitter Screenshot

👉 Mike is also creating YouTube vlogs about his entrepreneurial experience.

YouTube Screenshot

👉 People can also learn about Mike’s journey by listening to his Founder Mornings podcast.

👉 Mike is also active on Indie Hackers. He recently organized an AMA session.

👉 Mike launched another build-in-public project called Octofolio. Along with another indie bootstrapper, Mike created the newsletter “Zero to SaaS” and a YouTube channel to document the Octofolio journey.

Octofolio Screenshot

>> Bannerbear by Jon Yongfook

👉 In his article “1 Year of Marketing a SaaS from $10K MRR to $27K MRR,” Jon Yongfook notes the following:

“In January 2021, I published probably the biggest “hit” I’ve had in terms of marketing up to that point. The Journey to $10K MRR post went sort of viral in our little bootstrapped SaaS world, even making it onto the Hacker News front page.”

Getting on Hacker News resulted in a big traffic spike on the Bannerbear website.

Bannerbear Screenshot

Jon also adds:

“Later in the year, I followed up with another set of lessons/thoughts in my 10K to 20K slideshow, which was also shared around and received a nice chunk of traffic.”

👉 Jon also created a newsletter called “Follow the Journey.” Jon updates his subscribers about the Bannerbear product, marketing, and business progress every two weeks. Here’s an email sample:

Newsletter Screenshot

👉 Jon is also using Indie Hackers to increase brand awareness. One year ago, he created an AMA session.

👉 Jon is actively using Twitter as a build-in-public channel.

Twitter Screenshot

>> lemlist by Guillaume Moubeche

👉 Although lemlist has three co-founders, Guillaume Moubeche is actively growing the company in public.

👉 To share the company’s biggest milestones, Guillaume usually writes detailed blog posts. Here’s an example.

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👉 Guillaume is also sharing company stories on his YouTube channel. Here’s an example. Apart from lessons and positive experiences, Guillaume is open about his entrepreneurial failures.

👉 It’s worth noting that apart from building in public, Guillaume is also strengthening his personal brand by leveraging Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, and TikTok.

>> ScrapingBee by Pierre de Wulf and Kevin Sahin

👉 Pierre de Wulf (@PierreDeWulf) and Kevin Sahin (@SahinKevin) are building and growing ScrapingBee in public.

Twitter Screenshot

👉 Both founders are active on Twitter, sharing things such as:

  • Business stats
  • Milestones
  • Lessons
  • Insights
  • Crazy customer stories
  • And more
Twitter Screenshot

👉 Apart from Twitter, the ScrapingBee founders created a page tracing their journey from 0 to $1M ARR without traditional VCs.

>> Copy.ai by Paul Yacoubian

👉 Paul Yacoubian is building Copy.ai in public using Twitter as his main channel.

👉 Paul is sharing regular Net Promoter Score posts. That’s unique, as I didn’t see other building-in-public founders doing it.

Twitter Screenshot

>> GrooveHQ by Alex Turnbull

👉 If you’re long enough in the SaaS industry, you’re probably associating the “build in public” movement with Alex Turnbull’s blog posts.

👉 Over the years, Alex published more than 40 articles on how he built Groove.

👉 The company team created a separate collection page for Alex’s built-in-public articles, called the Startup Journey. Here’s an article example.

👉 In his build-in-public articles, Alex shares things such as:

  • Getting to 1,000+ subscribers from a blog post
  • The loneliness of being a solo founder
  • Turning down $5 Million in VC funding
  • And more

👉 The collection page stats are impressive, to say the least:

  • 5,000,000+ readers
  • 25,000+ comments from Founders and CEOs
  • 3,500,000+ shares across Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn

👉 Groove recently launched its first no-strings-attached $1MM grant for SaaS and eCommerce entrepreneurs. As the page indicates

“We shared our journey to $10MM in ARR with Groove. Today, our next journey begins - creating a self-sustaining $1MM grant to help keep other entrepreneurs in control of their business. No equity stake, no board seats, no pressure.”

Here’s the catch:

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>> VEED by Sabba Keynejad

👉 If you want to learn Sabba Keynejad’s (@sab8a) step-by-step process of building a successful SaaS company, check out his Twitter account. Sabba’s Twitter is a gold mine in detailed growth explanations and recommendations.

Twitter Screenshot

👉 Apart from valuable lessons, Sabba also shares VEED wins, growth challenges, and future goals.

Twitter Screenshot

👉 On the VEED blog, you can find a micro-collection called “Our Journey.” On this page, Sabba shares detailed VEED growth/challenges stories. Here’s an example.

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>> Canny by Sarah Hum

👉 Sarah Hum (@sarahhum) is sharing important Canny milestones on Twitter.

Twitter Screenshot

👉 Apart from Twitter, Sarah is publishing detailed growth articles on Canny’s blog.

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👉 These articles are part of the Founder Stories collection.

👉 For more details, people can access Sarah’s Patreon page and listen to her audio diary.

>> ilo.so by Dan Rowden

👉 Dan is building four micro-SaaS to +$10k MRR. Dan is very active on Twitter, sharing entrepreneurial bits, such as:

  • Pricing decisions
  • Micro-projects
  • Business stats
  • Announcements
  • And other highly-interesting stuff
Twitter Screenshot

👉 Dan also has a YouTube vlog called “Life & SaaS.”

>> Tweet Hunter by Thomas Jacquesson and Thibault Louis-Lucas

👉 Both Thomas (@tomjacquesson) and Thibault (@tibo_maker) are building Tweet Hunter publicly. Mostly, they’re active on Twitter (obviously).

👉 Thomas deployed an interesting tactic, using the Twitter bio to share his goals.

Twitter Screenshot

👉 Both Thomas and Thibault are frequently sharing business insights and milestones.

Twitter Screenshot

👉 Thibault also used Indie Hackers to organize business growth AMA sessions.

>> Black Magic by Tony Dinh

👉 Like some of the build-in-public founders, Tony Dinh (@tdinh_me) added a progress bar to his bio on Twitter. Update: At this moment, Tony doesn’t have a Twitter progress bar anymore.

Twitter Screenshot

This progress bar indicates Tony’s journey from 0 to $10K MRR.

👉 Apart from the progress bar, Tony is also offering a newsletter that includes monthly updates regarding his entrepreneurial journey, and what he built and learned. Here’s a newsletter sample:

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👉 Tony is an indie hacker working on multiple micro-projects. One can learn what Tony is building by visiting his personal website.

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👉 Tony uses Notion for public notes. One of Tony’s long-form build-in-public articles explains how we grew Black Magic from $322 to $2K MRR.

>> BreakCold by Arnaud Belinga

👉 Arnaud Belinga (@ArnaudBelingaCX) added a build-in-public progress bar to his bio on Twitter. The progress bar signals Arnaud’s journey from 0 to $5K MRR.

Twitter Screenshot

👉 Arnaud is actively using Twitter, sharing things such as

  • Personal stories
  • Business growth
  • Challenges
  • Customer stories
  • Insights
  • And more
Twitter Screenshot

👉 Arnaud leveraged his Twitter community efficiently to support the BreakCold Product Hunt campaign. As a result, BreakCold gained the #1 Product of the Day badge.  

Twitter Screenshot

>> Testimonial by Damon Chen

👉 Similar to Tony and Arnaud, Damon Chen (@damengchen) added a progress bar to his bio on Twitter. The progress bar highlights Damon’s journey from 0 to $1M ARR.

Twitter Screenshot

Moreover, Damon added a header photo indicating his goal (reaching $1M ARR by Oct 2024) and the time left until the deadline.

👉 Damon tweets about bootstrapping Testimonial, writing about:

  • Monthly progress
  • Product improvements
  • Business experiments
  • Insights
  • And more
Twitter Screenshot

👉 Damon is also sharing his journey on Testimonial’s blog. Here’s an article he recently published.

>> Leave Me Alone by Danielle Johnson and James Ivings

👉 Danielle Johnson (@dinkydani21) and James Ivings (@JamesIvings) actively tweet about bootstrapping Leave Me Alone to $10K MRR.

👉 The Leave Me Alone founders tweet about:

  • Company milestones
  • New product features they’re working on
  • Customer stories
  • Business stats
  • Fun product questions
  • And more
Twitter Screenshot

>> Typefully & MailBrew by Francesco Di Lorenzo and Fabrizio Rinaldi

👉 Francesco di Lorenzo (@frankdilo) and Fabrizio Rinaldi (@linuz90) actively share their journey of building Typefully and MailBrew.

👉 Fabrizio’s personal page includes the updated $MRR for both products.

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👉 Francesco’s personal page includes a wide variety of articles (tweet threads) on business growth, team management, challenges & lessons, and more.

👉 Here’s an example about Typefully achieving net negative MRR churn.

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👉 Here’s another example of transitioning from Notion to Basecamp.

👉 Both Francesco and Fabrizio use Twitter to share their entrepreneurial journey. Here’s an interesting result the founders achieved by building in public:

Twitter Screenshot

>> Potion by Noah Bragg

👉 Noah Bragg (@noahwbragg) has a Twitter bio progress bar highlighting his journey from 0 to $5K MRR.

👉 Noah started to build Potion in public with this tweet.

Twitter Screenshot

👉 Over the years, Noah shared things such as:

  • Wins
  • Work-related updates
  • Updates
  • And more
Twitter Screenshot

👉 Noah is also documenting his journey by creating YouTube videos.

👉 Like many other founders, Noah has a personal blog.

👉 Finally, Noah collaborates with Ben Mann (another SaaS founder) on hosting the Product Journey podcast. As the podcast page indicates

“Every week, we get together and talk about building our online businesses, what’s been going on and what we’re struggling with at the moment. Join us on our journey and listen as we build, work through failure, and hopefully succeed in creating a profitable business.”

>> Friendly by Stefan Vetter

👉 Stefan Vetter (@stefanvetter) shares his journey to bootstrapping Friendly on Twitter, talking about:

  • Company milestones
  • Business stats
  • Challenges
  • And more
Twitter Screenshot

👉 Stefan also shares his entrepreneurial insights by writing articles on his personal page and Friendly’s blog.

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👉 People can stay updated with Stefan’s bootstrapping journey by subscribing to his newsletter.

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>> Reform by Peter Suhm

👉 Peter Suhm (@petersuhm) is building Reform in public, sharing his entrepreneurial journey on Twitter.

👉 Peter is writing about:

  • Wins
  • Progress
  • Website traffic stats
  • Process
  • And more
Twitter Screenshot

>> Simple.Ink by Ch Daniel

👉 Simple.Ink is a Notion website builder created by Ch Daniel.

👉 Apart from Simple.Ink, Ch Daniel (@chddaniel) has built other businesses such as LegitCheck. However, compared to other brands, Ch Daniel is building Simple.Ink in public by:

  • Writing about growth and learnings on the Simple.Ink blog. For example, Ch Daniel published an article called “From 0 → $4,000 ARR in 4 days, then to $7,000 in 7 days.”
  • Sharing progress and lessons on Twitter. Here’s an example.
Twitter Screenshot

👉 Ch Daniel also launched a newsletter called “The Road To $1,000,000+ ARR.” He has almost 6,000 subscribers. However, he didn’t publish any email issues yet.

👉 If you want to learn more about building your SaaS in public, you can check out this Cheatsheet created by Ch Daniel.

Bonus:

>> The 80-day Startup or Building Thymer In Public

👉 Diederik van Houten and Wim Cools launched an exciting build-in-public project called “80-day Startup.”

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👉 Diederik and Wim publish daily articles describing their progress, from validating their SaaS idea to defining the product pricing.

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👉 As their 80-day Startup page highlights: 

“We want to show people the entire process of creating a new product from scratch. In just 80 days, we’ll try to make and market something people want and are willing to pay for.”

👉 Diederik and Wim agreed upon the product idea on Day 3 and launched the landing page on Day 21.

👉 People can subscribe to their 80-day Startup newsletter to receive a weekly recap email.

👉 Apart from the 80-day Startup page, Diederik and Wim use Twitter to share their build-in-public journey.

Twitter Screenshot

👉 Although the founders didn’t launch Thymer yet, they offer a private beta. People can sign up and get on the early access launch list. The waiting lists are great for capturing website visitors while the product is not ready yet.

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► Quick note: On day 33, Diederik and Wim got 104 newsletter subscribers and 40 private beta waiting list signups. However, on day 67, the founders decided to take a break from building Thymer in public. There’s not much talk about it, but building in public while developing a product from scratch means extra work and pressure. So founders need to find a balance.

Moreover, Wim recently became a father. As life circumstances are changing, it’s always important to re-prioritize. Finally, as Wim writes, “Whenever one of us takes a break, we’ll just pause the project/blogging here, as we’re also running our existing business in parallel with this project. We’ll be back soon to continue with daily updates on the work towards finishing the MVP and the launch for Thymer!”

→ What to consider?

Questions:

  • What’s my main goal? What is the result I want to achieve by building in public?
  • To whom am I talking? Who’s my audience? Do I want to inspire fellow entrepreneurs? Or do I want to build in public for potential leads and prospects?
  • Do I feel comfortable with building in public?
  • What business aspects do I not feel comfortable sharing with my audience?
  • How will I build in public? Will I use social media only? Will I launch a blog, a podcast, or video series to share my entrepreneurial journey?
  • What’s my desired frequency? How often do I want to share things related to my entrepreneurial experience? Is it daily, weekly, or monthly?
  • How can I gain consistency and make sure I won’t stop building in public after a while?

Requirements:

  • There are no specific requirements you need to consider when building in public. You just have to be building something, like a SaaS product, and talk about your experience on your social media, blog, podcast, or YouTube channel. However, each build-in-public strategy contains several elements to consider:

👉 Messaging. When building in public, founders will construct their narrative having in mind one or several goals, such as to:

  • Educate by sharing failures and challenges or step-by-step processes;
  • Position themselves as experts and thought leaders;
  • Connect with like-minded people;
  • Test ideas and products;
  • Drive business by sharing content to capture prospects;
  • And more

👉 Platform(s). Founders have a wide variety of platforms to choose from:

  • Owned platform: personal blog, company’s blog, newsletter, podcast.
  • Third-party platforms: Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok, Medium, YouTube, IndieHackers.

👉 Format. Founders can build in public by:

  • Writing articles
  • Sharing social media posts
  • Creating illustrations
  • Recording videos
  • Recording podcast episodes

👉 Frequency. Consistency is the main element sustaining the build-in-public impact. It doesn’t matter whether founders publish daily build-in-public content. What matters, though, is the need to keep a certain frequency that creates anticipation:

  • Daily
  • Bi-weekly
  • Weekly
  • Monthly
  • Bi-monthly
  • Quarterly: For example, Sahil Lavingia is publishing quarterly Gumroad Update videos.  
  • Annual: Outseta is a good example of annual build-in-public frequency. Each year, Geoff Roberts, co-founder of Outseta, publishes an article about the company’s results and strategies.

👉 Scope. The SaaS leaders have absolute control over the build-in-public topics they want to talk about. Some may feel comfortable sharing their monthly revenue stats, while others feel good writing about a new strategy they’ve deployed. Founders have a wide variety of build-in-public topics to choose from:

  • Monthly business stats including $MRR, churn rate, new users, etc.
  • To-do lists
  • OKRs and goals
  • Milestones
  • New strategies
  • Book summaries
  • Company reports
  • Detailed explanations regarding a specific growth tactic and its results
  • Big/small failures and challenges
  • Entrepreneurial insights
  • Team & culture related subjects
  • Real-time board meetings
  • And more

Founders may focus on a specific topic only or combine multiple topics. It all depends on how comfortable they are with sharing certain aspects of their business growth. Also, it depends on the message and the goal they want to achieve.

Moreover, it’s never too late to start building in public. You can build in public before or/and after launching your product. Don’t forget that building in public is not about igniting marketing momentum only but also maintaining it. Building in public is a powerful marketing strategy you can leverage after launching the product.

→ Your action framework

✅ You don’t need a personal website to get started with building your SaaS in public. Use Twitter to get started today. There are two things to consider, though:

  • If you’re new to Twitter, you’ll have to invest time in nurturing a community. You see, using Twitter as a distribution channel won’t work. You need to engage with other people, find interesting posts, leave comments, interact with your followers via DMs, etc. If you want to create an impactful build-in-public strategy, you need to zoom out and identify the actions that will help you generate meaningful connections with people on Twitter.
  • Twitter is a third-party platform. If Twitter disappears overnight, you’ll lose your audience. To keep this from happening, create a build-in-public newsletter. You can easily integrate GetRevue and have a newsletter opt-in on your Twitter page. The good thing is that you don’t have to write and send weekly or monthly emails. You can follow the example of Pieter Levels, the founder of Nomad List and Remote OK. Peter has 126,7K subscribers without sending any email ever. How is this possible? As his newsletter call to action indicates: “Click subscribe to give me your email as a backup.” In the description, Peter adds, “This is a backup in case I ever lose my Twitter account with people being de-platformed, etc., it’s good to have a backup.”
Twitter Screenshot

✅ For an extra level of antifragility, you can create a website, YouTube channel, or podcast around your build-in-public efforts. Also, don’t forget that you can use your company’s blog to publish detailed growth and process articles.

✅ Work on developing an extra layer of self-awareness.

To “Build in public,” you’ll have to become aware of your process, which can be tricky. Most people do things without analyzing them.

For example, you can write an article without acknowledging your process. You may be completely unaware of how you choose a topic, research the subject, structure your narrative, develop your arguments, and more.

The same is true for creating a SaaS product, building a SaaS company, designing a marketing strategy, or leading a solid team. You go with the motion, doing your thing, without overthinking it. To build something in public, you need to be aware of your process, understand why you’re doing certain things, and how you’re executing.

This extra layer of consciousness is crucial for capturing and documenting your entrepreneurial journey. But how can you develop it? By being consistent and asking yourself questions such as:

  • How do I plan to reach my goal? What are the specific steps I’ll follow?
  • Why did I choose to act this way?
  • What made me think that option A is better than option B?
  • Can I do this task differently?
  • What are the results I’ve achieved after accomplishing this specific task?
  • How did my actions influence the outcome?
  • What’s my input?
  • How can I do better next time? What can I improve?
  • What’s my lesson? What have I learned from executing a specific task?

Building the habit of asking yourself all these questions will help you gain awareness and be more careful with your process. It will also help you capture valuable information and insights you can share with your audience.

✅ Remember that there’s no wrong or right way to build your SaaS in public. What’s important, though, is to identify those topics you feel comfortable sharing. If you don’t feel comfortable sharing your monthly or yearly business stats, it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t build in public. Change the angle and focus on sharing small experiments and insights instead.

✅ Also, it’s normal to change your build-in-public strategy. If you feel that you can’t share growth strategy details anymore because of the growing competition, stop and focus on sharing something else.

✅ If you feel overwhelmed, start small. It can be as small as a weekly tweet update on what you’ve worked on.

✅ Consistency is key to building in public. You can’t just post something once in a while. Choose a frequency (daily, weekly or monthly) and stick to it. Otherwise, you won’t be able to build momentum and create the feeling of anticipation.

💥 To remember: SaaS verticals, horizontals, and niches are becoming overcrowded and over-competitive by day. Grabbing/maintaining people’s attention and building an audience is getting harder, requiring more effort and resources. Leaving marketing for the last moment can be detrimental to your business growth. You need a consistent strategy to promote your product long before its launch and keep building momentum after you’ve released it. Without having access to an already existing audience, you’ll keep guessing whether people need your product or not. Also, you won’t have the easiness of getting immediate feedback from people.

SaaS buyers care more and more about seeing and interacting with real people and not faceless corporations. According to the #BrandsGetReal report by Social Sprout:

“70% of people want CEOs to have a personal presence on social media, and 63% of people say CEOs who have their own social profiles are better representatives for their companies than CEOs who do not.”

Nowadays, you can’t expect to increase brand awareness and build an audience without putting yourself out there. You will limit your pre-launch and post-launch marketing opportunities without building in public. Industry leaders and gatekeepers won’t see you, mention you in their posts/articles, or invite you as podcast/event guests. More and more founders and SaaS leaders start building in public. This practice is still underused, but building in public and sharing processes will soon become a standard SaaS marketing strategy.