Building a SaaS in public

Published: 2022-07-23

You might have already heard about building in public and this is something I am new to and currently employing with Analytics. It’s something I have thought about doing for a while, but decided I needed to focus my efforts on building products rather than wasting time writing.

I have followed a lot of other promoinent build-in-public makers and have gained a lot of inspiration for their story, as well as ideas I could imploy in my bootstrap project. Of course it is also a form of marketing as well, and as much as I hate to admit it, it’s important to build a brand online.

Some of the other main reasons I am building in public are:

Accountability
Reflection
Increase Writing
Marketing
Sharing

Accountability

Building in public holds you to a higher degree of accountability. For fear of embarassment, it is definitely a great motivator to continue pushing, as well as recieve great feedback that you can forget.

Failure is definitely something can happen, but if that failure is from you not listening to your users, that is wholly on you. Again, another strong motivator to not have things end badly.

Reflection

Success is never a linear path. While writing this all out in public, forces me to read back on my writing and reflect about the decisions I made, weather right or wrong. As a solo bootstrap founder, there is no one else there to tell me if I am going on the more correct path.

Pausing to reflect on your path, makes me think about what is working and not working and perhaps what adjustments to make going forward.

Increase Writing

I have never been into writing, most likely because I don’t think I am a good writer. I think that being able to eloquently put together points and share a story is always going to be important, so naturally practicing in order to get these skills is a must.

I have made it a goal of mine to become a better writer and combined with a will to make a successfuly company, might provide enough incentive to make this a habit.

Marketing

Not going to lie, building in public is all about marketing. Although it does provide other benefits to others perhaps, one of the bigger motives is more visibility to the product. I happen to enjoy reading the journeys of other transparent founders and it has been a funnel to their products for me. so why not?

Like I have probably mentioned many times before, I really enjoy and appreciate other founders sharing their journey while building their products, so I should pay it forward to anyone (hopefully at least 1 person) who might be in a similar place to me. It’s scary to bootstrap a product, so many doubts enter your mind, but the motivation of others is what keeps me going. I hope I can also be that light for anyone else.

Summary

There are many great reasons to build in public, these happen to be my top reasons. I don’t see any downsides to it and encourage anyone to do the same, even if just a simple exercise.