🏔 Building in Public

Sharing journey leads to growth opportunities

Author

Vlad Oleksiienko
December 20, 2022

Hey there,

This is Vlad, author of the SaaS Hill 🏔 newsletter - every week I write this email to help you level up your SaaS game and discover better opportunities, new SaaS trends & markets.

Let's discuss Building in public 💻.

⭐️ Intro

As the wise minions once said, "sharing is caring." And when it comes to building a business, sharing your journey can actually lead to some great opportunities: you can attract talented team members, investors, and early adopters, as well as sell products or services without actually selling them. Plus, it allows you to foster a community of users, build trust, and get valuable feedback early on.

Here is what we will discuss today:👉 6 predictions about building in public👉 21 founders who are building in public👉 23 products in this category👉 1 trend chart👉 4 useful links👉 2 Twitter threads

🤔 Predictions

  1. Building in Public trend will keep growing. Companies and Solopreneurs will look for creative ways to gather audiences.

  2. Companies that share their growth journey, success stories and failures will be called open startups

  3. Building in public allows to unlock tons of opportunities for founders, companies and solopreneurs:

    1. build teams and hire talents faster

    2. attract investors

    3. foster a community of users and early adopters

    4. sell products or services without actually selling

    5. build your status as an expert in a specific field

    6. build trust

    7. get feedback early

  4. There are tons of ways to build in public

    1. share feedback or quotes from users

    2. write a book

    3. share issues your company face

    4. share success stories (revenue milestones, number of users signed up for a product)

    5. share pieces of product roadmap; tease new features, new product launches

    6. share funny or emotional stories

    7. showcase your corporate culture

  5. Building in public can happen through many different channels:

    1. Twitter(Sahil Lavingia is building Gumroad in public)

    2. LinkedIn (Aleksandr Volodarsky is building Lemon.io in public)

    3. TikTok (🇺🇦 Ukrainian founder is building her startup Drukarnia on TikTok)

    4. YouTube (Simon Høiberg shares SaaS insights on YouTube)

    5. Newsletter (Janel Loi shares her journey via newsletter BrainPint)

    6. Book (Guillaume Moubeche wrote The $150M secret)

    7. Podcast

  6. Building in public will help companies get more customers:

    1. audience-first approach > startup founders will build an audience or community of like-minded people and then build a startup around this community (e.g. Adam Schoenfeld built PeerSignal - a community for tech people; he is building Keyplay - a SaaS product; now this community fuels SaaS growth)

    2. startup-first approach > some founders will launch a new product first and then will build a community around this product (e.g Guillaume Moubeche has been building lemlist and lempire in public)

    3. well-established brands will embrace the “building in public" approach to fuel their growth in the future as well 

🏢 Products

LinkedIn

  1. Typeshare > Everything you need to start writing online

  2. Postwell > Linkedin Content Creation Made Easy

  3. Taplio > Drive more opportunities from LinkedIn

Twitter

  1. Tweet Hunter > Get sales, growth and new networks

  2. Typefully > Write, schedule, and publish on Twitter

  3. tribescaler > Make Your Tweets Go Viral

  4. Hypefury > Your personal assistant to grow & monetize your Twitter audience

  5. hivoe > Kickstart conversations and build meaningful relationships on Twitter

  6. BlackMagic > Enhanced Twitter for pro tweeters

Images

  1. BrandBird > An image editor for busy SaaS founders, who build in public

  2. Pika > Turn boring screenshots into beautiful shareable images

  3. Magicshot > Screenshot editor for busy indie makers

  4. Wrap > Capture and edit beautiful, shareable screenshots

  5. Cleanshot > Capture your Mac’s screen like a pro

Newsletters

  1. Substack > Publish directly to their audience and get paid through subscriptions

  2. beehiiv > The newsletter platform built for growth

  3. ConvertKit > The creator marketing platform for your newsletter

Bio Links and Websites

  1. Bio Link > The One Link for All Your Links

  2. Linktree > Everything you are. In one simple link

  3. PikoLink > Level up your link-in-bio

  4. carrd > Simple, free, fully responsive one-page sites for pretty much anything

  5. Flooz > Make Money Doing What You Love

  6. snipfeed > Turn Your Passion Into Your Profession

📈 Trend Chart

📖 Experts to Follow

SaaS Founders Building in Public

🔗 Useful Links

  1. #buildinpublic > Tweet your progress with hashtag #buildinpublic

  2. Building in Public: 20 Examples & a How-To Guide by Failory

  3. audienceplus > We are building software, content, and community to help every company become a media company

  4. How Potion Used “Building in Public” to Gain Its First 100 Paying Customers

🐦 Twitter Thread

Andrew Gazdecki on building in public

Aleksandr Volodarsky on building in public 

🤝 Related SaaS Trends

  1. 🏔 Creator Economy > Raise of small businesses built by self-employed creators

  2. 🏔 Solopreneurship > Start and run your business independently

Thanks for reading. See you next time 👋

💡 Help me get better and suggest new ideas here📈 Suggest new SaaS trend reports here💻 Check out our list of 18.000 SaaS companies here📝 Check out other SaaS lists here