Building in public gets sold as a distribution tactic. It is a much better forcing function than it is a channel.
What it forces
- 01You cannot quietly abandon a direction. You have to either defend it or say out loud that you were wrong.
- 02The gap between what you claim and what you shipped becomes visible weekly.
- 03Feedback arrives before the sunk cost is large enough to make you defensive.
What it does not do
It does not build a pipeline on its own. Posting progress attracts other builders, which is a wonderful audience and rarely a buying one. If the goal is commercial, the public build has to be paired with a deliberate route to the people who actually have the problem.
Build in public for the discipline. Build a channel on purpose for the pipeline. Do not confuse the two.
The compounding part is credibility over time. Twelve months of visible shipping is a claim nobody can make with a deck.
Also posted on LinkedIn ↗