value of building in public

welcome to introspection ft. harsehaj! ⭐️ i’m harsehaj, an 18 y/o always up to something in social good x tech.

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btw, feel free to reply with topic ideas you want me to write about for future posts.

onto today’s topic: my take on building in public 🤳

ser·en·dip·i·ty
/ˌserənˈdipədē/
noun
the occurrence and development of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way.
"a fortunate stroke of serendipity"

this is something i optimize for, and from my personal experience, building in public maximizes my chances of experiencing serendipity.

for some context, building in public isn’t taking an ikea furniture box and putting it together in the middle of a busy park. it’s about posting the progress, failure, success and growth of a goal or project consistently online. but, if you want to build ikea furniture on the street, go for it (and send pics, i’m curious). 🔨

building in public is tedious, but it’s how to get connected to opportunities and people naturally (without even asking for it). work and results are more credible when they’re shown rather than told.

i’ve only started recently building more publicly through my twitter and newsletters. i felt the value pretty quickly after staying consistent. after all, i got my first internship because my interviewer liked my project newsletter.

i was always saying that i wanted to make friends with similar goals and work areas, but how would i have done that if nobody knew what i’m working on? reflecting on progress publicly draws people in and creates a little community of your own. there’s only so many random networking events someone can attend .. 😵‍💫

but, building in public isn’t all sunshine and rainbows for everyone. the world isn’t always supportive and loving. code might be stolen, ideas might be copied, and hate comments might be spread. one way to combat this is to establish a strong presence with your progress in the first place. this way, those little 🐀s will get shut down immediately by the good people that recognize your work.

a habit of posting a daily twitter thread increases my chances of serendipitous encounters immensely. so, why not?

do you build in public?

daily opportunity + resource drops 🔍️