Learning to Build in Public
After spending seven months with my head in the sand on a project, I needed to start something new. (I wrote about that here: https://www.indiehackers.com/post/how-i-quit-my-job-and-failed-at-being-an-indie-hacker-771b6e7407)
I came up with some guidelines that the next project had to adhere to:
- It had to be something where I could build the first version in a week
- I had to create design mockups
- I had to get email signups for early access before I let myself begin coding
Coming up with an idea
There's an app I was paying for called Shift. It's "workstation" software that keeps you logged into multiple email accounts. It has good reviews on software review sites online. The biggest complaint is that it's too expensive, at $99/year.
I decided to build a browser extension that had similar functionality to Shift. It should be pretty easy to build, and even if I never get any customers, I would be saving $99/year!
I spent an hour and built a rough design mockup of the idea I had. Then I spent a day building a landing page using the design mockups.
I got feedback by making a post for landing page feedback here on Indiehackers. Then I offered to make screencasts of landing page feedback for other people here as well. After making 70+ videos, there were quite a few people who offered to return the favor of giving landing page feedback.
Using suggestions from people, I would update the landing page and design mockups. I repeated this process of getting feedback and updating the landing page until people seemed to understand the idea.
Once visitors started to understand the idea, I began to get signups. Five people signed up for early access in this first week of iterating on Tidy Workspace.
Is it time to build?
I'm not sure if five was a good number to begin writing code. But I did. I went heads down built the initial version in a week.
I became so consumed by writing code that week, and my online presence went from the most active it's ever been to radio silence.
Traffic from the previous blog post I wrote was dying down. I was getting fewer messages from people. The motivation was starting to die down.
Building in public is hard
Being active online while building things does not come naturally to me. It's an important thing that I need to get better at, though.
It's less critical to get something out the door quickly than to engage with people consistently. Consistency is key for online projects. This is especially so in the early days before any organic traffic kicks in.
Have you learned any tips or tricks for building in public?
