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

Most entrepreneurs don’t strike the right balance when it comes to building in public. They hide everything they're working on or share random updates without strategy. This inconsistency confuses their audience and ruins their impact. Meanwhile, others with clear sharing strategies build loyal followings and secure market advantages that compound over time.

I've built and sold a social media agency, and I've 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.

Two Powerful Sharing Strategies for Business Growth

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.

Building In Public: A Strategic Approach

This approach involves sharing your journey, including failures, experiments, and wins. But it's done in a very intentional way, completely on your terms. By documenting your process consistently, you create content that serves as both marketing and proof of expertise.

• Share 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
• Don't air the entirety of your dirty laundry. Share details only when you know the outcome and can create a narrative around it.
• Don't rush to post. Balance is key.

The proof is everywhere that this approach 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.

Strategic Silence: A Powerful Alternative

But plenty of successful companies do the opposite. They keep 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.

This approach works when your edge comes from proprietary methods or you're in a highly competitive, fast-moving market. By focusing on execution without broadcasting your moves, you can maintain an air of secrecy and protect your unique advantage.

How to Choose Your Ideal Sharing Strategy

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?

Consider your business's marketing mix, including founder-led marketing, paid ads, user-generated content, influencer partnerships. If conventional marketing paths are closed or too expensive, transparency might be your edge.

Establishing Clear Principles for Your Sharing Strategy

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.

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.

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. Choose your game and play to win!