Building in Public

Use continuous shipping and employee/founder socials to create noise that drives growth

Elena Verna
10 growth tactics that never work | Elena Verna (Amplitude, Miro, Dropbox, SurveyMonkey)

Building in Public

"One of our biggest strategy is building in public. Building in public, and it's coupled with employee socials, founder-led socials... What's really important to us is to maintain noise in the market. And that noise in the market happens by us shipping every day, every other day, multiple times per day and just talking about it constantly." - Elena Verna

What It Is

Building in Public is a growth strategy where companies continuously share their progress, learnings, and shipping velocity through social channels. Rather than traditional marketing with periodic big announcements, it creates constant "noise in the market" through high-frequency updates from founders, employees, and the engineering team.

This approach treats shipping velocity as a marketing asset. Every feature shipped becomes content. Every engineer can be a marketer. The product feels alive and constantly evolving, which serves both acquisition and retention purposes.

How It Works

The Components:

  1. Founder Socials - CEO and founders actively share updates, numbers, learnings, and behind-the-scenes content on X/Twitter, LinkedIn, and other platforms.

  2. Employee Socials - Engineers, designers, and product people announce what they've shipped. Everyone becomes a marketer with autonomy to share their work.

  3. High Shipping Velocity - The engine that feeds the content. If you're not shipping frequently, there's nothing to share.

  4. Authenticity Over Polish - Building in public requires vulnerability and personality. Corporate scrubbing kills it. People want to see who's behind the product.

How It Drives Growth:

  • Resurrection: People see updates and think "Oh, there's more things here. I need to go check it out"
  • Re-engagement: Instead of newsletters, users check social to see "what has Lovable shipped now?"
  • Feedback Loop: Time from user feedback to shipped feature is so short that users feel heard
  • Trust Building: Transparency builds trust with potential customers who can see the team and culture

How to Apply It

  1. Establish shipping velocity first - You can't build in public without things to share. Make shipping your #1 development priority.

  2. Empower everyone to share - Don't funnel all announcements through marketing. Let engineers announce their features directly. This requires training and trust.

  3. Choose your platforms - For B2B, X and LinkedIn work well. For consumer, add Instagram and TikTok. Be where your users are.

  4. Show personality - Drop the corporate tone. Be vulnerable, authentic, and human. People rally behind teams, not faceless companies.

  5. Tier your launches - Small updates can be individual posts. Medium updates get more coordination. Big launches (tier 1) still deserve full marketing campaigns.

  6. Create a cadence - Ship and share daily or multiple times per day. Consistency creates expectation and habit in your audience.

When to Use It

  • Early-stage companies - When you're small and can maintain narrative control and trust
  • Competitive markets - When you need to maintain mindshare against many alternatives
  • Products with rapid iteration - When your product genuinely changes frequently
  • Personality-driven brands - When your team's energy and culture is a competitive advantage
  • AI and tech companies - Where user expectations of progress are high

Cautions

  • Harder at scale - As companies grow, maintaining consistent voice and narrative control becomes difficult
  • Requires shipping - If you don't have shipping velocity, you have nothing to share
  • Not for everyone - Some personalities struggle with public sharing; that's okay
  • Can feel overwhelming - Maintaining constant presence requires energy and systems

Source

  • Guest: Elena Verna
  • Episode: "10 growth tactics that never work | Elena Verna (Amplitude, Miro, Dropbox, SurveyMonkey)"
  • Key Discussion: (00:24:47) - Elena explains how building in public serves as Lovable's core growth strategy
  • YouTube: Watch on YouTube

Related Frameworks

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