Building an Audience: Build in Public Without Performing

An audience isn't a follower count. It's a group of people who trust you enough to pay attention when you say something.

That trust takes time to build, and it's one of the few advantages a small founder has over a big company.

What this means

Building an audience means regularly sharing useful, honest things with the people you want to reach, so that when you have something to offer, they already know you.

Building in public is one way to do that. You share the real process of building: decisions, experiments, numbers, mistakes. Not just the launch announcement.

What I learned

I've seen this work in my own career before HairOver.

When I started as a software engineer, I shared my journey on LinkedIn and on this blog. Nothing fancy, just what I was learning and building. Over time, that visibility turned into opportunities: jobs, lead roles, co-founder invitations. People reached out because they'd been watching me build for a while.

Then, for a while, I went quiet on X. Not because I stopped building. I was building HairOver. Coming back meant starting the audience-building again, and it made me think more carefully about how to do it this time.

Real example: HairOver's two-account plan

Before posting anything, I wrote a 30-day X plan. The key decision was two accounts with different jobs:

• My account: founder story, build-in-public updates, AI/technical lessons, startup lessons. The rule: not a sales account.
• HairOver's account: transformations ("same face, five haircuts"), hair education, demos, polls.

They work together, with a rule I like: the founder explains, the product demonstrates.

The reasoning is simple. A founder who keeps saying "download my app" stops being worth following. A product account that writes long reflections gets scrolled past. Separate jobs let each account stay useful.

Sharing failures, and numbers, responsibly

Building in public only works if it's honest. If you only share wins, it's just marketing with extra steps.

But honesty has a practical side:

Share failures specifically. "I made mistakes" is empty. "My pricing model left out the app store commission" is useful. I wrote up HairOver's specific mistakes for this reason.

Share numbers when they're accurate. Don't round up. Don't post projections that look like results. If a number isn't ready, say so.

Only post things that actually happened. When I reread my content calendar, I found posts written for events that hadn't happened yet, like "someone sent us their result." Planning posts ahead is fine. Posting them before they're true is not.

Turning one experiment into several pieces

You don't need new material every day. One real experiment can become many useful posts.

Take HairOver's pricing analysis:

• A short post: "I forgot the app store takes a cut. Here's what it did to my margin."
• A thread: the full pricing math.
• A long article: the complete breakdown.
• A chapter in this masterclass: business models.
• A lesson post: "Price as if every user uses everything they paid for."

Same experiment, five angles, each useful to a different reader. That's much more sustainable than trying to be clever every day.

What to do

1. Pick where your customers already pay attention and commit to that platform.
2. Decide what your account is for, and what it isn't for.
3. Share one real thing a week: a decision, a number, a mistake, a lesson.
4. Turn each experiment into several pieces at different lengths.
5. Reply more than you post. Real conversations build trust faster than broadcasting.

Mistakes to avoid

Performing instead of sharing. People notice when vulnerability is staged.

Only posting wins. It gets boring fast, and people stop believing it.

Selling in every post. Trust first. The product comes up naturally.

Chasing likes. Measure whether the right people are paying attention, not how many.

Going quiet for months. Audiences fade. I've done this, and restarting is harder than keeping going.

My current thinking

I think building in public is one of the best tools a small founder has, as long as it stays honest. The hard part isn't posting. It's being specific, admitting what hasn't worked, and resisting the urge to make everything sound like progress.

I don't have results from the HairOver X plan to share yet. When I do, they'll go in the HairOver guide, including the parts that make the plan look wrong.

Key takeaway

An audience is trust you build over time. Give your founder account and product account different jobs, share specific failures and accurate numbers, only post what actually happened, and turn each real experiment into several useful pieces.

Next: Marketing Without Losing Authenticity.