Building in Public

There's a lot of people these days saying to "build in public."

This is just another way of saying self-promotion.

While this seems like good advice on the surface, it can be a trap.

If your goal is to build an audience, then building in public is a solid strategy.

However, not all business models rely on having an audience.

To be clear, an audience is not a customer list. A customer is someone who pays you money directly. There are some people who will never become your customers, but will follow your journey as part of your audience. Perhaps to learn from you, or purely for entertainment.

This can be misleading and lead to a false sense of validation.

Unless you plan on monetizing through ads or sponsorships, then you don't need an audience.

If your model is charging users directly, then an audience isn't the goal.

Paying customers are.

Building in public doesn't directly generate customers.

Sure, it can be a byproduct of having an audience (because you have a leveraged way to market to them), but it is not the cause. Plenty of people have massive audiences, but no monetization strategy whatsoever.

If you don't want to be the center of attention, then you don't have to be. There are plenty of other marketing strategies you can use to find your customers.

So before you start building in public, make sure that your strategy aligns with your business model (and your personality).