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#BuildinPublic

August 18, 2021

@matttillotson

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All the barriers to #buildinpublic are personal and emotional.

@matttillotson

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Build in public: Why bother?

Immediate feedback: It can be difficult for startup teams to see usability issues when they exist so close to their own product.

Narrative: Everyone loves a good story.

Trust: both internally (at the company) and externally (potential customers, partners, and media).

Source: Gabby Goldberg. https://gabygoldberg.medium.com/the-building-in-public-how-to-guide-219d417f00c1

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#buildinpublic

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#buildinpublic

@matttillotson

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Who is building in public today?

@matttillotson

Austin Rief is the co-founder of Morning Brew, an entertaining business letter he started while still in college. 2M subs today. Tweets about challenges of building a business, recruits talent, banters with staff writers. He gives readers an inside look into what it’s like to run a high-growth media company.

Web Smith has a retail consultancy and paid industry newsletter. He Tweets insights and ideas about e-commerce and traditional retail. He’s super-insightful, and he’s testing ideas to see what resonates. More on that later.

David Perell created and runs the Write of Passage online writing school, where I was a mentor earlier this summer. He shares his ideas about writing, online education, and philosophy. Like Web Smith, he uses Twitter to test out what ideas are interesting and resonate.

Jen Hartmann runs social and PR for John Deere. She grew her account from a few hundred to more than 13,000 (now 17K) followers in less than year, sharing her ideas, struggles, and successes.

All these people give themselves permission to not get it exactly right every time. They are willing to be vulnerable and make some mistakes in the name of building connections and offering their networks value.

Any suggestions out there?

Some of you are active on Twitter.

But I’ll challenge you and tell you what I don’t see is your human side. Who is running these accounts? Where are the people and personalities behind them? As early stage companies, you have the ability and advantage of being more human, of showing yourselves and creating real connections. I strongly encourage you to do more of this. It’s a real advantage over larger competitors. And that’s connect with people as people, not faceless brands.

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Suhail Doshi

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David Perell

Created the Write of Passage online school
Tweets to test out ideas about writing, online education, and philosophy

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Outside Twitter

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Classic “Build in Public” playbook

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“I don’t know what to write”

Take quick notes

@matttillotson

Collect observations and ideas as you read articles

You start to plant a digital garden

Not knowing what to write about tends to be excuse #1�
Write from abundance by taking notes. Every writer uses notes to create.

There’s been an app explosion around note-taking: Roam Research, Notion, Evernote, etc. I have tried many and keep coming back to Apple Notes. It’s simple, it’s always with me.

Just get the habit of jotting down your your thoughts, observations, curiosities, and insights. Key moments from conversations you have. You can level up by storing interesting ideas from articles and books. Lots of courses out there to help you do this.
This is a natural outflow from your workday, your interactions, the things you take in. It’s just one more small step to capture those key moments for use later.�

Over time, you’ll start to build a database of interconnected ideas to draw from. �
Anyone doing this today?

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Note taking

“Everybody’s got an eye for something. The only difference is that I carry around a notebook in my front pocket. I write everything down, and it helps me recall.”

--comedian David Sedaris

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What to say

Share real quotes & screenshots of feedback from users
Propose interesting product ideas and ask the community for feedback
Articulate roadblocks the company is facing and how to overcome them
Give insight into largely unknown aspects of the company/product
Share “sneak peeks” and vague product updates for things to come
Tell emotional stories about your company to pull at followers’ heartstrings
Quote Tweet someone describing a problem and respond “We are fixing this at …”

Source: Gabby Goldberg. https://gabygoldberg.medium.com/the-building-in-public-how-to-guide-219d417f00c1

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Product enhancements

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Your personal story

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Thought leadership

Level one: �Sharing the ideas of others

Level two: �Sharing your unique perspective on the ideas of others

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Social proof

Your customers are your most credible storytellers. Ask them to share.

People like to talk about their wins.

Your customer is the hero. Your solution helps them transform.

Keep asking. In your newsletters, in conversations, wherever you can. Ask.

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Indirect social proof

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Don’t try to write everywhere

Blog or vlog

Newsletter

One social channel

@matttillotson

Ok, we’re going to catch our breath here shortly.

Once we’re writing, we need to build a flywheel for distributing our work.

Most of you have web sites already. If not, tools like Squarespace and Webflow offer no-code tools and templates for getting started. Host your blogs on your own sites. Own that space. Think about the terms, topics, and questions your customers need to solve--you are knee-deep in them every day. These serve as natural SEO to help new customers find your sites organically. SEO is it’s own topic, but write in the language your customers use, and write about their pain points and problems.

I cannot recommend newsletters highly enough. Please, if you are not collecting email addresses, start today. Your list is yours, and it’s so important. Newsletters are your most direct channel to customers, and you own it. Facebook and Twitter can’t take your list from you or algorythm you away from your customers. So important. For starting a newsletter, try Substack. It’s free and easy to use.

Don’t try to be on every social channel. You can’t do it effectively. Participate in one, primarily. Go where your ideal customer is. That’s probably LinkedIn or Twitter.

Social offers audience discovery. Your email list builds audience durability.

Let me stop here. Questions on blogs, newsletters or social?

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Newsletter: keep it simple

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Easy writing power-ups

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Low-effort, high-impact writing tips

Inject (positive) emotion

Surprise

Curiosity

Vulnerability

Humor

@matttillotson

Forget going “viral.” The goal is to create content that will connect you to readers and that readers will use to connect to each other.

Emotion is the engine that drives connection and sharing.

Surprise your readers. Draw parallels between different ideas. What surprised you in your business today? Odds are it will surprise someone else, too.

Invoke curiosity. (teasing new features or concepts)

Be vulnerable. Share where you’ve made mistakes. Let others live your experience so they don’t have to go through the same thing. This makes us real, makes us human.

Handle this one with care. But a little humor facilitates connection and makes you seem approachable. Just know your audience and proceed appropriately. Humor is powerful, but also highly flammable. Handle with care.

Emotion. Emotion creates connection and sharing.

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Low-effort, high-impact writing tips

Don’t hedge your opinions and beliefs

It is my belief that the sky is blue.

In my opinion, nocode is the future.

@matttillotson

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Low-effort, high-impact writing tips

Specificity

Our customers saw increased sales from digital signage

Just two months after installing our digital signs, Acme Corp revenues increased 19 percent.

@matttillotson

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Low-effort, high-impact writing tips

Destroy adverbs

She ran quickly

She sprinted

@matttillotson

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Low-effort, high-impact writing tips

Edit.

Edit everything.

Usually twice.

@matttillotson

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#buildinpublic

@matttillotson

Hoarding your learning, challenges, and successes helps no one.

“The coolest people I meet are the ones who find me through something I’ve written.” �

--Derek Sivers

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Thank you!

matttillotson.substack.com

@matttillotson

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Q & A

What’s holding you back?

@matttillotson

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“I don’t know how to say it.”

@matttillotson

Source: David Perell

Don’t be intimidated by this graphic--it’s actually pretty simple.
Now we have methods for gathering ideas, and it’s time to start sharing.
You can greatly reduce the risk of writing poorly by drafting in public. Drafting in public will help you know what to write and how to write it more clearly and compellingly.
This graphic is called the “Content Triangle.” It was created by David Perell for his online course Write of Passage, where I worked as an Alumni Mentor
It’s a methodology for cultivating and sharpening ideas by getting feedback every step of the way.
Content ideas start in conversations with others. Sparks of ideas.
Then you can share these rough ideas on Twitter and get feedback and engagement.
Ideas that gain traction can be turned into articles. But remember, we’re not Thorough. Get feedback from peers as you draft. Ask people to on Twitter to look at your drafts. Hell, send them to me--I’ll give you feedback.
Once you have a completed article, then publish it, to your site, and to a newsletter.
This model removes the risk of writing--it’s “dud avoidance.” You take small steps forward, iterate, and share more widely as your ideas are sharpened.
We write in public now. Writing is a social activity.
Any questions about this process? Anyone doing anything like this now?