Build In Public Or Keep It Secret? The Growth Hack Entrepreneurs Miss

Forbes

14-05-2025

Build in public or keep it secret? The growth hack entrepreneurs miss
Most entrepreneurs don't strike the right balance with building in public. They hide everything they're working on or they share random updates without strategy. They switch approaches based on mood, posting revenue figures one week then going silent for months.
Inconsistency confuses their audience and ruins their impact. While they flounder, others with clear sharing strategies build loyal followings or secure market advantages that compound over time.
I've built and sold a social media agency and seen firsthand how sharing strategies makes or breaks business growth. Some of my clients dominated their industries by carefully controlling information flow, while others thrived through radical transparency. The difference was simply how deliberately they chose their approach.
To win in business, you need to choose one clear sharing strategy. No middle ground. Build in public or keep your secrets. Each approach brings distinct advantages when executed with intention.
Let's break down both paths so you can pick one and double down.
Building in public means sharing your journey, including failures, experiments, and wins. But in a very intentional way, completely on your terms. This approach builds trust rapidly and attracts like-minded people to your world. When you document your process consistently, you create content that serves as both marketing and proof of expertise.
Share your frameworks after you've tested them. Show the thinking behind your decisions. Take people behind the scenes of your business in ways that add value to their lives. But don't air the entirety of your dirty laundry. Instead, share the details after you know the outcome and you can create a narrative around it. Don't rush to post. Neither oversharing or undersharing is the goal. The key is balance.
The proof is everywhere that this can work brilliantly. CopyAI went from $1 to $50,000 in monthly revenue by openly sharing their metrics and milestones on Twitter. Webflow rode transparency all the way to unicorn status worth $2 billion, turning their struggles and pivots into community-building fuel.
Superhuman built their email tool in public, discussing challenges openly, which shaped their product and created a rabid fan base in the process. Others like Buffer, Ghost, Gumroad and Nomad List share everything from revenue to employee salaries, making transparency a cornerstone of their success. When done strategically, building in public creates a magnetic pull that silent companies simply can't match.
But plenty of successful companies do the opposite. Apple famously keeps products under wraps until launch day, creating massive anticipation and preventing competitors from copying their innovations. Stripe, now worth $70 billion, quietly built their payment infrastructure with minimal public fanfare. SpaceX keeps many projects classified until they're ready to unveil. Even Notion grew largely through word-of-mouth rather than broadcasting their roadmap.
Strategic silence can be just as powerful as transparency when executed with purpose. Some founders move in the shadows. They focus entirely on execution without broadcasting their moves. This approach works when your edge comes from proprietary methods or you're in a highly competitive, fast-moving market. Let other people overshare and give away their next moves too soon.
Play this game by channeling all your energy into execution rather than explanation. Set clear boundaries on what you won't discuss on podcasts. Create inside-only documents about strategy and vision. Share results with your team but not your audience. Move deliberately and reveal your hand only when you've already secured your position.
Deciding whether to build in public or keep your secrets depends on your unique situation. Here are the key factors to help you decide:
Are you energized by sharing and community engagement? Do you love showing up online and talking through challenges and how you're solving them? Or do you prefer working quietly without external feedback? Choose the approach that aligns with your natural strengths.
Is your industry collaborative with plenty of room for multiple winners? Or is it zero-sum with limited opportunities? Transparency works better in collaborative spaces. You never know which doors might open by being open. You never know who might get in touch when you share your truth. But that doesn't happen in every industry.
Does your edge come from unique perspective and execution? Or from proprietary methods and insider knowledge? The more unique your methods, the more you might want to protect them. But don't focus on your competition because that keeps you playing small. Let them follow you, but don't follow them.
Your marketing mix matters. Consider how many other avenues you have available: founder-led marketing, paid ads, user-generated content, influencer partnerships. Your business might have many better options to increase exposure and revenue without sharing your journey. However, if you're running a "boring" SaaS business with limited marketing appeal, building in public might be your main opportunity to stand out. When conventional marketing paths are closed or too expensive, transparency becomes your edge.
Once you've chosen your approach, establish clear principles for what you'll share and what you'll keep private.
For the build-in-public crowd, this means determining which metrics, processes, and learnings you'll make public. When and how often to share, ensuring it resonates with the right people. Deciding where your business ends and your personal life begins. Whether you'll share the numbers or the feelings behind them.
For the secrecy players, it means establishing even clearer rules about what information stays within the circles of your business. And making sure your team knows the rules too. If you're building in private, you'll have to build your content strategy around other tactics.
Revisit boundaries regularly. As your business develops, so should your sharing strategy. What made sense to share at the startup phase might need protection as you scale. What needed secrecy early on might become your best marketing asset later. Stay intentional as you grow.
Too many founders waste time trying to play two games at once. They want the audience growth from building in public but are too afraid to share anything truly valuable. They want the competitive advantage of secrecy but still crave validation from an audience. But you can't win by straddling both approaches. The world rewards those who make deliberate choices and execute with conviction. Your move, founder.