8 ms·

Farewell, Building in Public

324 points by herbertl 4y ago

tablet 4y ago
Building in public is fun and attracts customers that share your culture and attitude. Thus they are more loyal. https://fibery.io/open-startup https://fibery.io/open-startup
- esskay 4y ago
  Only when done right. When low-effort posting of said build in public data is done it just looks spammy. It's the IndieHackers problem, that whole site is full of people going "I agree, I did that with <mysite>.com"
  - tablet 4y ago
    Everything looks spammy if you do it without craft, quality and soul.
  - saimiam 4y ago
    IndieHackers used to be such a brilliant resource for genuine conversation and camaraderie. I think the homepage layout revamp with a hundred different columns and tabs and tags and sh!t completely ruined the earlier ethos. I remember posts routinely getting dozens of comments and responses. Nowadays, if a post gets low double digit comments, it is doing very well. Sad, imho.
    - esskay 4y ago
      Yeah tbh I think they just gave up on it. It's running on autopilot these days with very little being done to turn it back into an actual community instead of a place where all you see is dead or dying low effort moneygrabs.
    - ayewo 4y ago
      I thought I was the only one that felt this way about the homepage revamp. There’s also no effort to tone down excessive self-promotion posts and posts that instead of kindle discussion on-site, they link out to third party sites. Sad indeed.
      - saimiam 4y ago
        Yeah, it’s just a spam sink nowadays. I guess Stripe figured that not a lot of indiehackers were converting into stripe customers so they decided to let it die of neglect.
    - ilrwbwrkhv 4y ago
      It's also slow AF. One of the slowest modern sites I have seen. Why does every page load take so long?
      - saimiam 4y ago
        I don’t think it was ever snappy and I’ve had an account there since 2017-18. It’s slow compared to other sites but not that much slower than it was say 2-3 years ago.
buf 4y ago
I build in public and think about these two things often. As an indie dev, I make around $800k per year on my two saas companies. Copycats: There have been some, but the saas companies that I've build have such a hard cold start problem (they're social marketplaces), that all the ones I've seen pop-up flatline. If you have a product that has no moat, sure, don't build in public. Bragging: In fact, it's the opposite. When I post something, and the comments start rolling in, it's only then that I realize mistakes I've made or things I could've done better. --- I think building in public is still a decent way to build an audience and to get free insights.
- majani 4y ago
  Strong moat or an original IP like Minecraft
- artemonster 4y ago
  How did you find your niche?
  - buf 4y ago
    It was a hobby I did in college. Then, the usual -- browsing subreddits, niche forums.
    - alex_suzuki 4y ago
      Did you spend a lot on advertising? Or were you able to grow mostly organically?
- thecoppinger 4y ago
  Agreed—it really comes down to what you’re building, and how.
dutchbrit 4y ago
I always love seeing numbers and other peoples success. It motivates. I think the majority don’t see it as bragging, it shows you can bootstrap your own startups.
Oras 4y ago
Building in public is mostly screenshots and meaningless info. I say mostly, as sometimes I see some value, like suggesting products for day to day usage. It can motivate some people to see others progress and succeed in entrepreneurship or side projects. Still, the reality is, running a startup is far more complicated than being squished in tweets and screenshots.
- buf 4y ago
  I disagree. Building in public is public roadmap, being active in forums/chats as a rep of your product, putting out questions on debated topics, and of course, screenshots. The meaningless info you're referring to are IMO copycats of Levels who thinks build in public is just screenshots of MRR.
  - Oras 4y ago
    Why do you need a product to participate in online forums/chats? And how's posting your roadmap building in public? Isn't that a necessity?
    - vineyardmike 4y ago
      > Why do you need a product to participate in online forums/chats? And how's posting your roadmap building in public? Isn't that a necessity? I don’t build in public myself, but i do love reading the stories of others. I always took this behavior as “building [a business] in public” more than just the codebase or product. You want to interact and converse with your customers. Find out what they’re willing to pay for, what they want, share where you’re going (so people can get excited about what’s to come).
  - WA 4y ago
    Building in public is marketing for people who sell to other people who want to leave their 9-to-5.
nmfisher 4y ago
I'm starting the transition from "building in private" to "building in public" (emphasis on the "build", though, because the product still isn't ready so it's not like there's any real financials to discuss). To be honest, my heart does skip a beat when I think about being completely open about everything. It's the same feeling I'd get if I were naked in public - there's nothing wrong with it, I'd just feel very....exposed. I'm not even sure what people would be interested in hearing. How I blew almost $150k on my first venture? How many followers/signups I got from posting X/Y/Z to platforms A/B/C? How much I paid for designs that I didn't like? I suppose a lot of it is experimentation/trial-and-error, but it's tough to go against my natural instinct to hide behind my IDE.
- antipotoad 4y ago
  > How I blew almost $150k on my first venture? Sounds like a great story waiting to be told, especially because you survived it.
- thekillingtree 4y ago
  all of these are good topics to discuss. coming from the design world in my previous career, i think there's value in discussing how you paid for designs you didn't like!
nicbou 4y ago
I always took "build in public" as a prompt to share what you're working on, and interesting tidbits about your work. In my case, it's mostly because I don't get to talk shop otherwise. My posts are a mix of German bureaucracy updates, web development "TIL"s and new handmade illustrations. I find that talking about income fosters the wrong kind of discussions with the wrong kind of people. These discussions tend to be extractive rather than conversational.
- ignoramous 4y ago
  There are all kinds of building in public. GitLab sometimes even has CEO meetings and sales pitches streamed to public!
ommarab 4y ago
This is my first time learning of the term Building In Public. However a few weeks ago I discovered and fell in love with the GitLab Handbook, and the term I've been using to proselytize to my teammates (lol) was "Open Source Company" or "Documentation as Company." Of course, GitLab doesn't share everything, and certainly not Money as a Dashboard (you will find live dashboards scattered throughout the Handbook, though). As with most things I've read, they are very transparent and intentional about the decisions they've made to make certain data public vs. limited access vs. internal. https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/communication/confidentiality-levels/#not-public https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/communication/confidential... Open Sourcing accounting internals about a for-profit business always seemed to me a non-starter. Interesting that other companies have experimented with that business model
- antipotoad 4y ago
  I think you’d also enjoy Posthog’s handbook: https://posthog.com/handbook https://posthog.com/handbook
artemonster 4y ago
I am always so inspired when someone posts open info like this. But as everything is in life, we cant have nice things because of few assholes that ruin it for everyone :(
berjin 4y ago
I empathise with the comments about copycats. I made a web game and initially put it up on github pages. It was inspired by a similar web game which had been abandoned and I wanted to add features etc so I re-created it from scratch. Within a week it was cloned and put up on a nice domain with a different logo and the copycat was impersonating me on social media and ranking quite well on Google. It's no longer open source. The copy cat site now has adverts up and links to a network of copycat web games. Many copy cat sites are now embedding my site proxied (to avoid CORS) and surrounded with adverts. These sites rank really well on Google because the copy cat sites link to each other. The game is at https://redactle-unlimited.com https://redactle-unlimited.com if you want to check it out. I haven't made a life changing amount from donations but it actually might be a significant amount for people in poorer economies. The bottom line is that you need to have a moat by having a trusted brand or database/codebase that can't be imitated.
- teddyh 4y ago
  You’re being purposefully vague. This is not a good thing if you want to convince people. All the things you refer to could be easily linked to, or referred to by name. You don’t even link to (or name) your own product, or the original abandoned web game. EDIT: I now see the link in your comment. If it was there originally and I missed it, then I apologize. Otherwise, thank you for adding a link to it!
  - forrestthewoods 4y ago
    Sounds like something a copycat would say!
  - jansan 4y ago
    > You don’t even link to (or name) your own product GP actually put the link of his game into his comment. It is redactle-unlimited.com
    - teddyh 4y ago
      Huh. Either they edited their comment after I wrote mine, or I missed it when reading, in which case I apologize.
marban 4y ago
I find the whole BIP movement somewhere between cringe and naive. Also, while it might be a cheap way to promote your product (Though I doubt the audience will also be your customers), it's the equivalent of the reason why someone works out — Do I want to impress the other guys, or am I doing it for health benefits?
- urthor 4y ago
  That's an unfair comparisom to gym braggarts I'd say. Unlike with working out, build in public provides a valuable source of engagement and feedback. Those are real, concrete reasons, to build in public.
wenbin 4y ago
I resonate with everything said in the post based on my experience building my own projects over the past decade. I'd say that indie hackers don't need to feel pressured to build in public. You have the freedom to share or not share anything. It's your work. If you don't feel comfortable sharing too much, it's totally okay. People might blame you not open source your entire project. People might blame you for not sharing your personal income. Ignore them. Be yourself.
- spiffytech 4y ago
  It's certainly not obligatory, but sharing one's journey is very edifying. I found patio11's old blog inspirational, both for the specific learnings and for showing what a lone person can do. I'd like to someday inspire others in the same way. It's a sad loss for the world if bad actors ruin this.
  - waboremo 4y ago
    I don't believe sharing one's journey is going away any time soon, but it's going to be far more reflective in nature and also more polished. Due to moving away from building in public, you're also not going to get to see the gritty mistakes they make in their codebase along the way. Which is great news if you want more patio11 blogs, as his were very reflective and less about the direct building in public. Not so great if you want more levelsio type blogs from lesser known folks.
seydor 4y ago
The problem starts in the inability to create an audience. All the roads are taken.
julianeon 4y ago
It’s funny that this guy mentions Pieter Levels as being “inspiring” when he does it. That guy has a huge audience so when he debuts some new product it’s like… cool, good for you, but why does that matter for an indie dev? The most relevant part of that success - having 100,000 eyeballs checking out everything you do - is the hardest to achieve.
- WA 4y ago
  I think it's the story of Pieter. He started at zero several years ago and build his way up with no prior coding experience. That's the inspiring part. It's not what he does now, because as you said: he has an audience and launching within that audience makes a big difference.
tchock23 4y ago
There is a newsletter that finds stories of people being successful building in public and gives readers ideas for how to clone them. Ironically, that newsletter has also been cloned multiple times. Entrepreneurship is difficult enough. I don’t get why you would want to build in public these days (at least to the degree some people do).
k__ 4y ago
The copycat issue sounds like a capitalism problem. If a process is good and easy to be copied, it's actually a good thing. It's just that our incentivisation mechanisms currently don't capture it.
- davidjfelix 4y ago
  First, I completely agree. I think this is where a lot of IP proponents would argue that IP is a way to form capital where it doesn't exist - around formalizing ideas and processes into something that you are legally entitled to rent. I think this really dangerously damages ideas that can help people and I think that it's a terrible crutch for a bad system.
- czue 4y ago
  I agree, though information asymmetry (what you know that your competition doesn't) is a huge competitive advantage in a capitalistic market. Building in public erodes that information asymmetry away, giving away much of your competitive advantage.
  - k__ 4y ago
    Yes, and that's sad.
typpo 4y ago
I relate to this a lot. I used to do a yearly roundup of all my side projects, which were generally well received by HN. Then some of my projects started making money and the copycats came. Carving out a niche is more important to me than building in public. I'm not one of those guys on Twitter making $1M/yr and I don't need a personal brand. Good luck to Cory - I've enjoyed reading his stuff.
publicbuilder30 4y ago
Relatives coming after your money lol?
komali2 4y ago
I guess it could be considered arrogant to talk about making lots of money, but in this specific instance, given that the author shares so much information, it's far more valuable than braggardly. To be considered braggardly would mean that we accept a capitalist definition of value and worth being how much money someone earns or makes. That means that we accept both that the market efficiently rewards societal contributions with money (lmao no) AND that those that are rich because they got a good spawn point are as valuable to society as someone that has the same net worth through their own work "from scratch." I reject this and therefore I'm disheartened that this person will stop being radically transparent. The information is valuable. I understand the copycat thing though, that makes sense. I try to avoid linking my own shit on here but I did literally just last week write a post on this subject: https://blog.calebjay.com/posts/share-your-salary/ https://blog.calebjay.com/posts/share-your-salary/ after a similar conversation with someone who makes a lot of money, and how they felt uncomfortable sharing their salary cause they didn't wanna seem like they're bragging. No ads or trackers or anything (other than goatcounter).
alin23 4y ago
Now I feel that sharing the revenue over and over looks a bit by bragging, but I'm pretty sure it's just because I've already seen too many #buildinpublic tweets. I'm always reminded by the fact that I myself started selling Lunar (https://lunar.fyi https://lunar.fyi) specifically because in a private discussion with the developer of rotato.app, he told me he makes $16k/month with his apps. I was making less than half of that, working on things that felt useless and ready to be scrapped by the next manager, and feeling miserable every day. Because of this, I also started sharing my revenue in comments from time to time, in the hope that someone would be inspired as I was. But I strive to do this as rarely as possible. Some of these #buildinpublic journeys create the false impression that it's easy to get that kind of money. It isn't, a lot of it is chance. Since Lunar, I've put my countless ideas into some other apps at https://lowtechguys.com https://lowtechguys.com, but very few generate more than $100/month of revenue. There is room to grow, but hitting a niche is usually the biggest factor in getting sustained revenue high enough to live on.
- nicbou 4y ago
  I come across your path every once in a while, and I appreciate how you talk about your work. Honesty and openness is really hard to come by when you need it the most. When you're in a position to share, you start to understand why: it's all downsides.
indymike 4y ago
Building in public has always seemed to be an interesting marketing strategy where you trade gaining customers now for having more competitors later.
breck 4y ago
IMO you have some misguided views on what we are all doing here on earth. It's not a zero sum game, we should all be building bigger and better things. You shouldn't worry about people copying your old stuff, because you should be on to the next thing. Building the next bigger, better thing. #buildInPublic has worked great for you—you reached the next level. But now you are considering pulling the ladder up, so you can look down on people, rather than looking ahead to the next hill to climb. I'd urge you to not only not stop building in public, but to double down and build even more in public. For starters, ditch the copywrong and go public domain. After all, this world wide web that you are 100% dependent on to make your business was built by TBL and released to the public domain.
- czue 4y ago
  (author here) This is an interesting take, and I agree with a lot of it. As I mentioned in the post, I'm not going to stop building in public entirely, and to some extent part of why I'm changing up what I'm doing is to be on to the next bigger, better thing. I felt the current version was leading to stagnation. "More bigger swings" is an emerging theme for me. I didn't understand your last point - possibly because "copywrong" and "TBL" are new terms to me...
  - breck 4y ago
    TBL = Tim Berners Lee copywrong = A better term than the one we use. Sorry, I've been involved with the "Intellectual Freedom Movement" for about 17 years. We say IP = "imaginary property" and we say things like (c)opywrong and (c)hains. Further reading: https://breckyunits.com/how-the-public-domain-can-win.html https://breckyunits.com/how-the-public-domain-can-win.html https://breckyunits.com/the-intellectual-freedom-amendment.html https://breckyunits.com/the-intellectual-freedom-amendment.h... https://breckyunits.com/an-unpopular-phrase.html https://breckyunits.com/an-unpopular-phrase.html > (author here) I really enjoyed the post, Btw
mistrial9 4y ago
there is a guy in Berkeley who made a certain ultra-high precision app for the iPhone.. meticulous detail, great graphic design.. endorsed by a photographer for National Geographic (a big deal in the USA and elsewhere) Someone xxxchinaxxx copied his app exactly, with fewer features but all his layout, and advertised it heavily somehow.. after months, the clone was more popular on the Apple app store - also unclear what that means.. That was the last software written by this smart, careful and hard working guy that I know of.. had to "get a job" with a local union doing non-software stuff due to health care and retirement (over 40) considerations. There is no respect or social safety net here (California), based on this real example.

324 points by herbertl 4y ago

Building in public is fun and attracts customers that share your culture and attitude. Thus they are more loyal. https://fibery.io/open-startup https://fibery.io/open-startup

esskay 4y ago
Only when done right. When low-effort posting of said build in public data is done it just looks spammy. It's the IndieHackers problem, that whole site is full of people going "I agree, I did that with <mysite>.com"
- tablet 4y ago
  Everything looks spammy if you do it without craft, quality and soul.
- saimiam 4y ago
  IndieHackers used to be such a brilliant resource for genuine conversation and camaraderie. I think the homepage layout revamp with a hundred different columns and tabs and tags and sh!t completely ruined the earlier ethos. I remember posts routinely getting dozens of comments and responses. Nowadays, if a post gets low double digit comments, it is doing very well. Sad, imho.
  - esskay 4y ago
    Yeah tbh I think they just gave up on it. It's running on autopilot these days with very little being done to turn it back into an actual community instead of a place where all you see is dead or dying low effort moneygrabs.
  - ayewo 4y ago
    I thought I was the only one that felt this way about the homepage revamp. There’s also no effort to tone down excessive self-promotion posts and posts that instead of kindle discussion on-site, they link out to third party sites. Sad indeed.
    - saimiam 4y ago
      Yeah, it’s just a spam sink nowadays. I guess Stripe figured that not a lot of indiehackers were converting into stripe customers so they decided to let it die of neglect.
  - ilrwbwrkhv 4y ago
    It's also slow AF. One of the slowest modern sites I have seen. Why does every page load take so long?
    - saimiam 4y ago
      I don’t think it was ever snappy and I’ve had an account there since 2017-18. It’s slow compared to other sites but not that much slower than it was say 2-3 years ago.

buf 4y ago

I build in public and think about these two things often. As an indie dev, I make around $800k per year on my two saas companies. Copycats: There have been some, but the saas companies that I've build have such a hard cold start problem (they're social marketplaces), that all the ones I've seen pop-up flatline. If you have a product that has no moat, sure, don't build in public. Bragging: In fact, it's the opposite. When I post something, and the comments start rolling in, it's only then that I realize mistakes I've made or things I could've done better. --- I think building in public is still a decent way to build an audience and to get free insights.

majani 4y ago
Strong moat or an original IP like Minecraft
artemonster 4y ago
How did you find your niche?
- buf 4y ago
  It was a hobby I did in college. Then, the usual -- browsing subreddits, niche forums.
  - alex_suzuki 4y ago
    Did you spend a lot on advertising? Or were you able to grow mostly organically?
thecoppinger 4y ago
Agreed—it really comes down to what you’re building, and how.

dutchbrit 4y ago

I always love seeing numbers and other peoples success. It motivates. I think the majority don’t see it as bragging, it shows you can bootstrap your own startups.

Oras 4y ago

Building in public is mostly screenshots and meaningless info. I say mostly, as sometimes I see some value, like suggesting products for day to day usage. It can motivate some people to see others progress and succeed in entrepreneurship or side projects. Still, the reality is, running a startup is far more complicated than being squished in tweets and screenshots.

buf 4y ago
I disagree. Building in public is public roadmap, being active in forums/chats as a rep of your product, putting out questions on debated topics, and of course, screenshots. The meaningless info you're referring to are IMO copycats of Levels who thinks build in public is just screenshots of MRR.
- Oras 4y ago
  Why do you need a product to participate in online forums/chats? And how's posting your roadmap building in public? Isn't that a necessity?
  - vineyardmike 4y ago
    > Why do you need a product to participate in online forums/chats? And how's posting your roadmap building in public? Isn't that a necessity? I don’t build in public myself, but i do love reading the stories of others. I always took this behavior as “building [a business] in public” more than just the codebase or product. You want to interact and converse with your customers. Find out what they’re willing to pay for, what they want, share where you’re going (so people can get excited about what’s to come).
- WA 4y ago
  Building in public is marketing for people who sell to other people who want to leave their 9-to-5.

nmfisher 4y ago

I'm starting the transition from "building in private" to "building in public" (emphasis on the "build", though, because the product still isn't ready so it's not like there's any real financials to discuss). To be honest, my heart does skip a beat when I think about being completely open about everything. It's the same feeling I'd get if I were naked in public - there's nothing wrong with it, I'd just feel very....exposed. I'm not even sure what people would be interested in hearing. How I blew almost $150k on my first venture? How many followers/signups I got from posting X/Y/Z to platforms A/B/C? How much I paid for designs that I didn't like? I suppose a lot of it is experimentation/trial-and-error, but it's tough to go against my natural instinct to hide behind my IDE.

antipotoad 4y ago
> How I blew almost $150k on my first venture? Sounds like a great story waiting to be told, especially because you survived it.
thekillingtree 4y ago
all of these are good topics to discuss. coming from the design world in my previous career, i think there's value in discussing how you paid for designs you didn't like!

nicbou 4y ago

I always took "build in public" as a prompt to share what you're working on, and interesting tidbits about your work. In my case, it's mostly because I don't get to talk shop otherwise. My posts are a mix of German bureaucracy updates, web development "TIL"s and new handmade illustrations. I find that talking about income fosters the wrong kind of discussions with the wrong kind of people. These discussions tend to be extractive rather than conversational.

ignoramous 4y ago
There are all kinds of building in public. GitLab sometimes even has CEO meetings and sales pitches streamed to public!

ommarab 4y ago

This is my first time learning of the term Building In Public. However a few weeks ago I discovered and fell in love with the GitLab Handbook, and the term I've been using to proselytize to my teammates (lol) was "Open Source Company" or "Documentation as Company." Of course, GitLab doesn't share everything, and certainly not Money as a Dashboard (you will find live dashboards scattered throughout the Handbook, though). As with most things I've read, they are very transparent and intentional about the decisions they've made to make certain data public vs. limited access vs. internal. https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/communication/confidentiality-levels/#not-public https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/communication/confidential... Open Sourcing accounting internals about a for-profit business always seemed to me a non-starter. Interesting that other companies have experimented with that business model

antipotoad 4y ago
I think you’d also enjoy Posthog’s handbook: https://posthog.com/handbook https://posthog.com/handbook

artemonster 4y ago

I am always so inspired when someone posts open info like this. But as everything is in life, we cant have nice things because of few assholes that ruin it for everyone :(

berjin 4y ago

I empathise with the comments about copycats. I made a web game and initially put it up on github pages. It was inspired by a similar web game which had been abandoned and I wanted to add features etc so I re-created it from scratch. Within a week it was cloned and put up on a nice domain with a different logo and the copycat was impersonating me on social media and ranking quite well on Google. It's no longer open source. The copy cat site now has adverts up and links to a network of copycat web games. Many copy cat sites are now embedding my site proxied (to avoid CORS) and surrounded with adverts. These sites rank really well on Google because the copy cat sites link to each other. The game is at https://redactle-unlimited.com https://redactle-unlimited.com if you want to check it out. I haven't made a life changing amount from donations but it actually might be a significant amount for people in poorer economies. The bottom line is that you need to have a moat by having a trusted brand or database/codebase that can't be imitated.

teddyh 4y ago
You’re being purposefully vague. This is not a good thing if you want to convince people. All the things you refer to could be easily linked to, or referred to by name. You don’t even link to (or name) your own product, or the original abandoned web game. EDIT: I now see the link in your comment. If it was there originally and I missed it, then I apologize. Otherwise, thank you for adding a link to it!
- forrestthewoods 4y ago
  Sounds like something a copycat would say!
- jansan 4y ago
  > You don’t even link to (or name) your own product GP actually put the link of his game into his comment. It is redactle-unlimited.com
  - teddyh 4y ago
    Huh. Either they edited their comment after I wrote mine, or I missed it when reading, in which case I apologize.

marban 4y ago

I find the whole BIP movement somewhere between cringe and naive. Also, while it might be a cheap way to promote your product (Though I doubt the audience will also be your customers), it's the equivalent of the reason why someone works out — Do I want to impress the other guys, or am I doing it for health benefits?

urthor 4y ago
That's an unfair comparisom to gym braggarts I'd say. Unlike with working out, build in public provides a valuable source of engagement and feedback. Those are real, concrete reasons, to build in public.

wenbin 4y ago

I resonate with everything said in the post based on my experience building my own projects over the past decade. I'd say that indie hackers don't need to feel pressured to build in public. You have the freedom to share or not share anything. It's your work. If you don't feel comfortable sharing too much, it's totally okay. People might blame you not open source your entire project. People might blame you for not sharing your personal income. Ignore them. Be yourself.

spiffytech 4y ago
It's certainly not obligatory, but sharing one's journey is very edifying. I found patio11's old blog inspirational, both for the specific learnings and for showing what a lone person can do. I'd like to someday inspire others in the same way. It's a sad loss for the world if bad actors ruin this.
- waboremo 4y ago
  I don't believe sharing one's journey is going away any time soon, but it's going to be far more reflective in nature and also more polished. Due to moving away from building in public, you're also not going to get to see the gritty mistakes they make in their codebase along the way. Which is great news if you want more patio11 blogs, as his were very reflective and less about the direct building in public. Not so great if you want more levelsio type blogs from lesser known folks.

seydor 4y ago

The problem starts in the inability to create an audience. All the roads are taken.

julianeon 4y ago

It’s funny that this guy mentions Pieter Levels as being “inspiring” when he does it. That guy has a huge audience so when he debuts some new product it’s like… cool, good for you, but why does that matter for an indie dev? The most relevant part of that success - having 100,000 eyeballs checking out everything you do - is the hardest to achieve.

WA 4y ago
I think it's the story of Pieter. He started at zero several years ago and build his way up with no prior coding experience. That's the inspiring part. It's not what he does now, because as you said: he has an audience and launching within that audience makes a big difference.

tchock23 4y ago

There is a newsletter that finds stories of people being successful building in public and gives readers ideas for how to clone them. Ironically, that newsletter has also been cloned multiple times. Entrepreneurship is difficult enough. I don’t get why you would want to build in public these days (at least to the degree some people do).

k__ 4y ago

The copycat issue sounds like a capitalism problem. If a process is good and easy to be copied, it's actually a good thing. It's just that our incentivisation mechanisms currently don't capture it.

davidjfelix 4y ago
First, I completely agree. I think this is where a lot of IP proponents would argue that IP is a way to form capital where it doesn't exist - around formalizing ideas and processes into something that you are legally entitled to rent. I think this really dangerously damages ideas that can help people and I think that it's a terrible crutch for a bad system.
czue 4y ago
I agree, though information asymmetry (what you know that your competition doesn't) is a huge competitive advantage in a capitalistic market. Building in public erodes that information asymmetry away, giving away much of your competitive advantage.
- k__ 4y ago
  Yes, and that's sad.

typpo 4y ago

I relate to this a lot. I used to do a yearly roundup of all my side projects, which were generally well received by HN. Then some of my projects started making money and the copycats came. Carving out a niche is more important to me than building in public. I'm not one of those guys on Twitter making $1M/yr and I don't need a personal brand. Good luck to Cory - I've enjoyed reading his stuff.

publicbuilder30 4y ago

Relatives coming after your money lol?

komali2 4y ago

I guess it could be considered arrogant to talk about making lots of money, but in this specific instance, given that the author shares so much information, it's far more valuable than braggardly. To be considered braggardly would mean that we accept a capitalist definition of value and worth being how much money someone earns or makes. That means that we accept both that the market efficiently rewards societal contributions with money (lmao no) AND that those that are rich because they got a good spawn point are as valuable to society as someone that has the same net worth through their own work "from scratch." I reject this and therefore I'm disheartened that this person will stop being radically transparent. The information is valuable. I understand the copycat thing though, that makes sense. I try to avoid linking my own shit on here but I did literally just last week write a post on this subject: https://blog.calebjay.com/posts/share-your-salary/ https://blog.calebjay.com/posts/share-your-salary/ after a similar conversation with someone who makes a lot of money, and how they felt uncomfortable sharing their salary cause they didn't wanna seem like they're bragging. No ads or trackers or anything (other than goatcounter).

alin23 4y ago

Now I feel that sharing the revenue over and over looks a bit by bragging, but I'm pretty sure it's just because I've already seen too many #buildinpublic tweets. I'm always reminded by the fact that I myself started selling Lunar (https://lunar.fyi https://lunar.fyi) specifically because in a private discussion with the developer of rotato.app, he told me he makes $16k/month with his apps. I was making less than half of that, working on things that felt useless and ready to be scrapped by the next manager, and feeling miserable every day. Because of this, I also started sharing my revenue in comments from time to time, in the hope that someone would be inspired as I was. But I strive to do this as rarely as possible. Some of these #buildinpublic journeys create the false impression that it's easy to get that kind of money. It isn't, a lot of it is chance. Since Lunar, I've put my countless ideas into some other apps at https://lowtechguys.com https://lowtechguys.com, but very few generate more than $100/month of revenue. There is room to grow, but hitting a niche is usually the biggest factor in getting sustained revenue high enough to live on.

nicbou 4y ago
I come across your path every once in a while, and I appreciate how you talk about your work. Honesty and openness is really hard to come by when you need it the most. When you're in a position to share, you start to understand why: it's all downsides.

indymike 4y ago

Building in public has always seemed to be an interesting marketing strategy where you trade gaining customers now for having more competitors later.

breck 4y ago

IMO you have some misguided views on what we are all doing here on earth. It's not a zero sum game, we should all be building bigger and better things. You shouldn't worry about people copying your old stuff, because you should be on to the next thing. Building the next bigger, better thing. #buildInPublic has worked great for you—you reached the next level. But now you are considering pulling the ladder up, so you can look down on people, rather than looking ahead to the next hill to climb. I'd urge you to not only not stop building in public, but to double down and build even more in public. For starters, ditch the copywrong and go public domain. After all, this world wide web that you are 100% dependent on to make your business was built by TBL and released to the public domain.

czue 4y ago
(author here) This is an interesting take, and I agree with a lot of it. As I mentioned in the post, I'm not going to stop building in public entirely, and to some extent part of why I'm changing up what I'm doing is to be on to the next bigger, better thing. I felt the current version was leading to stagnation. "More bigger swings" is an emerging theme for me. I didn't understand your last point - possibly because "copywrong" and "TBL" are new terms to me...
- breck 4y ago
  TBL = Tim Berners Lee copywrong = A better term than the one we use. Sorry, I've been involved with the "Intellectual Freedom Movement" for about 17 years. We say IP = "imaginary property" and we say things like (c)opywrong and (c)hains. Further reading: https://breckyunits.com/how-the-public-domain-can-win.html https://breckyunits.com/how-the-public-domain-can-win.html https://breckyunits.com/the-intellectual-freedom-amendment.html https://breckyunits.com/the-intellectual-freedom-amendment.h... https://breckyunits.com/an-unpopular-phrase.html https://breckyunits.com/an-unpopular-phrase.html > (author here) I really enjoyed the post, Btw

mistrial9 4y ago

there is a guy in Berkeley who made a certain ultra-high precision app for the iPhone.. meticulous detail, great graphic design.. endorsed by a photographer for National Geographic (a big deal in the USA and elsewhere) Someone xxxchinaxxx copied his app exactly, with fewer features but all his layout, and advertised it heavily somehow.. after months, the clone was more popular on the Apple app store - also unclear what that means.. That was the last software written by this smart, careful and hard working guy that I know of.. had to "get a job" with a local union doing non-software stuff due to health care and retirement (over 40) considerations. There is no respect or social safety net here (California), based on this real example.