Hello everyone, it’s KP. Welcome to the 10th edition of “How I Built This In Public“, a special series that features top founders and creators who’re boldly building their projects, startups and creative ventures in public. My intention is to ask them a consistent set of simple questions and distill insights and lessons so we can all learn from their experiments.
For this edition we have Noah Bragg, Founder of Potion - a tool for creating custom Notion websites in minutes.
He has been successful at building his SaaS up to its recent acquisition and he’s done all this while sharing his journey and lessons in public.
Without further ado, here’s the full interview. Enjoy :)
“I love building indie SaaS and online products that are helpful to others. I’ve been doing this “entrepreneur thing” the last 5 years. I recently sold my SaaS, Potion for $300k after growing it to $6k+ MRR for 2 years. I’m looking to start my next thing soon!”
1. At what point in your startup journey did you begin your “build in public” journey and why?
I started building Potion in public on day one. I knew from my previous micro SaaS that I really enjoyed the BIP process and getting to learn and hear feedback from people publicly as I go. I also knew that it would help benefit the business. I picked Potion as a product because I felt that it would align well with the same kind of people that enjoy BIP.
2. What personal / business benefits do you believe you attracted from building in public?
My first 75 customers came from BIP on Twitter. I also learned a ton from the feedback that people gave on my posts. I made a lot of connections with other entrepreneurs from BIP.
3. In the early days, did you have any specific challenges or hesitations on whether you should build in public or not? If so — what were they and how did you overcome them?
I do worry some that competitors and others will copy features and things that I am sharing in public. That could hurt the business in some ways. I do think I got more Potion copy cats because I was BIP. Some days it can be challenging to share in public just because you may be feeling down or things aren’t going quite like you’d want. I try to share the ups and downs even when it’s hard.
4. Are there any myths or misconceptions about building in public from before that were debunked by your personal experience?
Heard some say that BIP people just like building an audience more so than building a business. This could be true in some cases but I think building an audience is just a side effect of doing cool things and making a great business in the real world. I saw this first hand. The more my business grew, the more of a following I gained rather than the reverse of focusing on Twitter first and growing the business from that.
5. What are your 3 tips for someone who’s just starting their “build in public” journey?
Share the ups and downs. People want to see some one that is being authentic. Not someone who is just showing the fake highlights.
Do something unique and interesting to grow your credibility.
Share things you are learning that would be helpful for others.
6. In your experience, how did the 80-20 rule play out? What few vital activities of BIP do you believe have resulted in high leverage outcomes for you?
Share your metrics and numbers. Charts and data visuals really help people understand how your business is working and is valuable to them. It also catches your eye. My metrics and numbers posts always got the most engagement.
7. How much time do you allocate for building in public on a daily/weekly basis?
Recently I haven’t been building in public as much. But back in the hay day of my building in public I spent around 2 hours a week. This includes short videos that I made. I wasn’t very scheduled about it. When something came to my mind that I thought would be helpful to share, I did.
8. How did you stay motivated in the early days when generally you don’t see quick results or super high engagement as you begin building in public?
For me it was a bit different. I started BIP before a lot of people were doing it. My first post was something around the lines of, “I’m going to start building a SaaS in public and share the whole process here.” That tweet got my 1,000 followers in 24 hours. So I started to get a lot of engagement from BIP on day one. What motivated me was seeing the progress of my business and learning a lot as I went!
9. How did you handle copycats while you built in public?
I just ignored them. Try not to make decisions based on my competitors and instead make them based on all the feedback I’m hearing from my customers.
10. Who are 3 people you would recommend for others to follow in the BIP niche?
I’m building a new startup called TrustScore. The goal is to help crypto users not fall into scams and help them do their due diligence on projects. Help push crypto to be more trustworthy.
That’s a wrap for now! Hope you enjoyed this piece.
Here are the rest of the interviews in this “How I Built This In Public“ series.
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