Build in Public vs. Keeping Secrets: A Growth Hack Unveiled

In the dynamic world of entrepreneurship, most founders struggle to find the right balance between sharing their journey and keeping their ideas under wraps. Some entrepreneurs choose to share every small update, while others keep everything locked away, only to oscillate between these two extremes without a clear strategy. It’s a recipe for confusion, not just for themselves but for their audience as well.

While the unfocused approach leads to frustration, a select few entrepreneurs, who adopt intentional sharing methods, cultivate loyal followings and create significant market advantages. As someone who has built and sold a social media agency, I’ve observed how a transparent approach can empower growth, while others achieve success through calculated secrecy. The results hinge on the strategic choices made by each entrepreneur.

Two Powerful Sharing Strategies for Business Growth

To thrive in today’s competitive landscape, you must select one clear sharing strategy: build in public or keep your secrets. Each approach possesses unique benefits when executed with intention.

Let’s explore both paths so you can confidently choose your route and commit to it.

The Strategic Transparency Approach

Building in public involves sharing your entire journey, replete with failures, experiments, and triumphs, but with intentionality. This strategy builds trust swiftly and attracts like-minded individuals to your cause. When you consistently document your process, you create marketing materials and demonstrate your expertise simultaneously.

Share your frameworks only after refining them. Illuminate your thought process and take your audience behind the curtain in ways that offer real value. However, avoid airing every single failure; instead, craft narratives around your outcomes that resonate. The aim is to find balance, steering clear of both oversharing or undersharing.

Numerous companies exemplify the power of this strategy. For instance, CopyAI skyrocketed from $1 to $50,000 in monthly revenue by openly sharing their progress on Twitter. Similarly, Webflow’s journey to a staggering $2 billion unicorn valuation was fueled by transparency. They transformed their struggles into community engagement and loyalty.

Superhuman took a similar route, crafting their email tool in public and discussing challenges along the way to cultivate a devoted user base. Other trailblazers like Buffer, Ghost, Gumroad, and Nomad List have all made transparency their secret sauce for success. When done strategically, building in public creates a magnetic allure that silent companies simply can’t match.

The Competitive Edge Strategy

On the flip side, many successful companies adhere to the opposite approach. Apple, for example, famously maintains secrecy about new products until launch day, generating tremendous anticipation while thwarting competitor imitation. Stripe, valued at $70 billion, quietly built its payment infrastructure with minimal public exposure. SpaceX also expertly uses secrecy, keeping many projects classified until they are ready for reveal.

The power of strategic silence can rival transparency. Some founders thrive in the shadows, concentrating solely on execution without revealing their next moves. This can work effectively in highly competitive, fast-paced markets or when your edge lies in proprietary methods. Let others overshare while you focus on securing your position.

Dedicate your energy to execution, not explanation. Set clear boundaries on what remains off the record. Keep your team informed of your principles but preserve strategic details from public exposure becoming part of your marketing strategy.

How to Choose Your Ideal Sharing Strategy

The decision to build in public or maintain secrecy is unique to your situation. Here are key factors to consider:

1. Your Personality Style

What energizes you? Do you thrive on sharing experiences and engaging with a community, or do you prefer working quietly without external validation? Select the approach that aligns with your strengths.

2. Your Market Dynamics

Evaluate your industry: is it collaborative or competitive? Transparency can flourish in collaborative environments, unlocking unforeseen opportunities through openness. Conversely, a cutthroat landscape may necessitate a guarded approach to safeguard your advantage.

3. Your Competitive Advantage

Consider the source of your edge. If it arises from unique execution or insights, you may want to shield those methods. Don’t fixate on competitors, as that stifles your growth. Focus on your own journey and let others follow your lead instead.

4. Your Other Options

Your marketing mix is important. Assess the other channels available for promotion, such as influencer partnerships, paid ads, or user-generated content. In many scenarios, particularly with “boring” SaaS products, building in public may be your most effective differentiator when conventional marketing tactics are unavailable or prohibitively expensive.

Create Your Boundary System

After selecting your strategy, establish crystal-clear principles regarding the information you’ll share and what remains confidential.

For the “build-in-public” approach, decide on the metrics and lessons you’ll disclose, when and how frequently you’ll share, and where your business life intersects with your personal life. For secrecy, set stringent guidelines about what stays within your business circles, ensuring your team understands these rules as well. If you choose the private path, be diligent in creating a content strategy that aligns with your alternative marketing tactics.

Revisit your boundaries regularly. Your strategy should evolve alongside your business. What may be suitable to share in a startup phase could require more guarding as you expand. Similarly, insights that were private early on might later blossom into powerful marketing assets. Stay intentional as you navigate this growth journey.

Choose Your Game and Play to Win

Too many founders attempt to juggle both strategies, wanting audience engagement from public sharing while hesitating to disclose meaningful insights. Conversely, they crave the competitive edge of secrecy but still seek validation from an audience. But you cannot win by attempting to straddle both worlds. Success favors those who make decisive choices and act on them with conviction. Your next move is pivotal, founder.