Building in Public is Uncomfortable — Do It Anyway

The first time I posted about something I was building, it had three bugs, a broken mobile layout, and a name I wasn't sure about. I posted anyway. That post got more genuine feedback than anything I'd quietly shipped before.

There's a version of building in public that's pure marketing — polished screenshots, perfectly timed announcements, everything sanitized before it reaches anyone's eyes. That's fine but it's not what I'm talking about. I mean the messier version. Sharing the thing before you're confident in it.

If you are not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you've launched too late.

What you actually get from it

Feedback is the obvious one. But there's something more useful — accountability. When you've told people you're building something, you have a reason to keep going past the point where it stops being fun. Most projects die in that gap. Public commitment is one of the few things that closes it.

How I do it at GoodDevs

Running an agency adds a layer of complexity — clients aren't always comfortable with public discussion of the work. So I've developed a simple rule: share the technique, not the project. If I build something clever for a client, I can write about the approach without naming anyone.

// What you can always share
const shareable = {
  theApproach: true,
  theProblem: true,        // generalized
  theLessons: true,
  theCode: true,           // abstracted
};

// What stays private
const private = {
  clientName: false,
  projectDetails: false,
  revenue: false,          // unless you want to
};

This keeps you prolific without breaking trust. Most interesting technical problems are generic enough that the specific context doesn't matter anyway.

Start smaller than feels right

The post you're putting off because it's not ready — publish a shorter, rougher version of it today. Not because done is better than good, but because the feedback you get will make the final version better than anything you'd produce in isolation.