By Hiten Shah · medium.com · @hnshah on X · LinkedIn
Hiten Shah argues that building in public began as a risky, honest practice where founders shared unfinished thinking to find like-minded people and sharpen their own conviction. As audiences grew and tools for measuring, optimizing, and generating content spread, the practice drifted toward managing perception and brand. Because nearly everyone is now visible, visibility alone no longer sets anyone apart. The essay concludes that genuine, lived, unpolished thinking, including unresolved trade-offs, is what builds trust and is worth reclaiming.
01Key takeaways
- Share unfinished thinking and decisions, not only polished results, because that is where trust comes from.
- Treat building in public as a way to sharpen your own conviction rather than as a brand-building tactic.
- Visibility is now common, so differentiate through details only you could provide.
- Be candid about trade-offs and decisions you are not sure were right.
- Watch for the drift from showing your process to managing perception, and steer back toward honesty.
02Key sections
- The original spirit of building in public
- Early founders shared rough thinking and decisions before results, using risk and vulnerability to attract the few people who shared their problem. Honesty, not polish, made the practice compelling.
- How performance crept in
- As audiences arrived, posts became branded and rehearsed, and the practice shifted from showing process to managing how one looks. Tools for scheduling, SEO, and AI writing made authenticity easy to imitate.
- Why the audience was never the goal
- Early builders were chasing conviction and clearer thinking, treating attention as a side effect rather than the purpose of sharing.
- Everyone is public now
- Even CEOs now communicate directly, so simple visibility has stopped being a differentiator. Being genuine is what sets someone apart.
- Reclaiming the practice
- The author urges builders to share what only they could say, including trade-offs and uncertain decisions, to learn faster and build real gravity around their work.
03From the post
“There was a time when building in public felt radical. Founders wrote to think out loud. They shared decisions before they had results. They didn’t know if anyone was listening, and that was the point. These founders were placing markers. Tiny signals sent into the dark, hoping to find the few people who saw the same problem and wanted to…”
Summary and takeaways written by PM Atlas; quotes are short excerpts. © the original author.