The Fear of Building in Public (And How to Get Over It)

The fear isn't what you think it is.

Most people assume the fear of building in public is about failure — that they'll try something, it won't work, and people will see. That's part of it. But in my experience, the deeper fear is more specific, and once you name it, it's a lot easier to dismantle.

Here's what's actually going on.

Fear #1: Fear of Judgment

The most common version of the fear: if I post about what I'm building, people will have opinions about it, and some of those opinions will be negative.

This is true. People will have opinions. A small percentage of them will be unkind. But there's a reframe that helped me here more than anything else:

Your audience, for the most part, is not critics. It's people who are where you were.

When you post about building a digital product business from scratch, the people who engage aren't established entrepreneurs looking to poke holes in your approach. They're people who are trying to do the same thing and are curious whether it's possible, what it actually looks like, and whether someone like them can pull it off.

The critics are a tiny minority who aren't your audience anyway. The majority of people who show up are fellow travelers. Once I internalized that, posting felt less like standing up in front of a panel of judges and more like talking to a room of people who came because they want to hear what you have to say.

Fear #2: Sharing Numbers Before They're Impressive

This one kept me quiet for longer than it should have.

The fear: if I share that I made $200 last month, people will judge me for how small it is. And by the time I have "real" numbers to share, the audience will already exist for the people who started earlier.

Two things are wrong with this:

First, the timing problem. You will never feel like your numbers are impressive enough to share. There's always a larger number you could be waiting for. People who wait until they're "ready" typically wait forever.

Second, the audience math. The people who care about small numbers are the people who are trying to reach small numbers. Your first $200 month is the post that gets found by someone who hasn't made their first dollar yet. That person is your audience. They don't need you to be making $20,000/month — they need to know $200 is achievable and to understand how you got there.

Early numbers aren't embarrassing. They're exactly what the right audience is looking for.

Fear #3: Being Wrong in Public

This is the subtler fear — posting a take, a prediction, or a strategy, and then having it not pan out. Being on record with something that turns out to be wrong.

Here's the thing: being wrong in public, handled well, is one of the best things that can happen for your credibility.

When you post "I thought X would work, it didn't, here's what I learned instead" — that's a high-value post. It demonstrates intellectual honesty. It makes future recommendations more credible because your audience knows you'll say it when something doesn't work. The alternative — only posting wins and polished conclusions — makes you look good in the short term and builds a fragile kind of credibility that cracks the moment something goes wrong.

Embrace being wrong publicly, quickly, and with a lesson. It's a feature, not a bug.

Where These Fears Come From

All three of these fears have the same root: imagining an audience of critics rather than an audience of students.

When I imagine my posts being read by a cynical, experienced operator who's scrutinizing everything I say — I get scared. When I imagine my posts being read by someone who's three months into figuring out the same things I figured out two years ago — I feel useful. Same post, completely different feeling.

The audience you're actually speaking to is the second group. That's who shows up. That's who cares.

How Dan Actually Started

I didn't launch a building-in-public presence with a manifesto or a thread about my journey. I started with one post: I'd just published my first product on MadeThis, and I wrote a short post describing what it was, what problem it solved, and what I'd done to build it.

That's all. No revenue. No big reveal. Just: here's a thing I made, here's why, here's the link.

That post got a small amount of engagement. A few people clicked the product link. One person bought. None of that was dramatic. But it broke the seal — I'd shared something real, nothing terrible had happened, and I had a data point that the world didn't end.

Start that small. Post one real thing. See what happens. Do it again.

Practical First Steps

If you want to start building in public but haven't yet:

1. Write about the last problem you solved — not how you've been building for years, just the last specific thing you figured out that you wished you'd known sooner.
2. Post one update about something you're working on right now. Not finished, not polished. Just: here's what I'm doing and why.
3. Share one honest assessment of a tool, platform, or strategy you've tried. What actually happened, not just the pitch.

None of these require you to share revenue, followers, or any metric that feels vulnerable. They just require sharing something real.

For more on how to calibrate what you share once you've started, see my post on how to share your business journey without oversharing. That's the next problem to solve — once you're past the fear, the calibration question comes next.

The fear is real. It's also wrong about who's watching. Start posting.