What Most People Get Wrong About Building in Public

I often recommend people tie their name and face to the products they're building, whether that's software, an education product, or anything else.

The reason isn't just that it helps people trust you more.

When you build in public, your audience follows you, not your product. So when you cut your losses and pivot, you keep the trust and goodwill you've accumulated.

You're building for yourself, instead of a transient brand name.

Step 1: Maintain Momentum Across Projects

The more assets you can transfer from one project to another, the more momentum you keep.

The biggest asset is your audience. Everyone who signs up to a product you're building publicly enters your marketing ecosystem. If you've served them well the first time, a good number will follow you to your next venture.

This also includes your relationships with affiliates and suppliers. For SaaS, think data brokers, devs you've hired, and design partners who already understand how you work.

What about visibility of failure? People don't care if your business fails. They care if it fails them, if it stops serving them. Those people will simply cancel. Everyone else stays in your ecosystem, ready for whatever you build next.

Step 2: Be Willing to Cut Your Losses

Some product ideas will fail. If none of yours have failed, they just haven't failed yet. Any builder needs the ability to kill an idea that isn't worth growing.

Products are either growing or dying. If you're keeping a dying product alive, you're spending energy that belongs on a more fruitful venture.

Good builders are willing to cut their losses. Send the closure email, delete the app, let the domain expire. It's harder than it sounds when you've poured months into something, but the alternative is worse: bleeding energy into a product the market has already voted against.

This is where Step 1 pays off. When you know that cutting your losses doesn't mean starting from zero, it's easier to actually do it. Your audience comes with you. So does your reputation for shipping. The product dies; you don't.

That's the whole point of building in public.