buildingpublic

Buildingpublic is the practice of developing products, projects, or content in a transparent, public-facing process, where progress, decisions, and results are shared openly with an audience. It emphasizes visibility over secrecy and aims to invite feedback, validation, and community involvement.

Practitioners publish various artifacts such as roadmaps, experiments, prototype builds, source code, dashboards, launch timelines, and postmortems. Communication channels include personal blogs, newsletters, public social media threads, open-source repositories, livestreams, and podcasts.

The approach has roots in the broader build in public movement in tech and creative industries, gaining prominence in the 2010s and onward as a way to reduce barriers to entry, demonstrate competence, and foster trust. It is used by startups, independent makers, educators, and researchers.

Benefits include faster feedback cycles, improved product-market fit, stronger audience relationships, and lower customer acquisition costs. It can also attract potential collaborators and talent. The transparent process helps demystify product development and aligns expectations with users.

Risks include exposure of strategic information, increased pressure or burnout, misinterpretation of incomplete results, and potential criticism. Not all projects are suitable for public sharing, and some teams adopt hybrid approaches balancing openness with confidentiality.

Related concepts include open source development, transparent accounting and metrics, and the broader build in public ethos in entrepreneurship and content creation. Examples of practice span software, hardware, education, and civic projects.