KP: So today I want to share a few lessons and insights from that journey, but also familiarize you with the territory. What is the territory about? What is this mythical thing I'm talking about? And why is this like a cult?
I'm just kidding. Or what's the fuss about right in my view, building in public is the future of marketing and brand building. And this is a very unpopular opinion. I don't think majority of the world would agree with me, but I don't care. It is so true for me. And I will continue to create the world model in my head or the realities that fit this particular thing.
So according to me, it's an intentional practice of creating content where and you're sharing a story as it unfolds with openness and vulnerability. In the simplest form, building in public is sharing just as you go, right? That's what Alexis Ohanian told me and he, we had this massively like really inspiring chat on my podcast.
Please listen to it if you get a chance. It's a really great episode. But the highlight here is openness and vulnerability. I think. Anybody and their grandmother can create content on the internet, right? We have thousands of those people, but I think the rare combo is someone who is creating content on the internet, whether it's Twitter, LinkedIn, but do we feel open, do we feel that the person is open or they're closed and insecure?
Do we feel that person is someone who is vulnerable and as has the leadership quality? Or do we feel that person is a shit show in public? Those are the deciding factors. I think that differentiate from buying my definition to what? Typically people take this to so in my view, it or the building in public organically attracts other like minded people.
It is not for 95 percent of the world, may not care about it, right? But it's for it's being the best fit for the 5 percent who care about what you care about. Your worldviews, your values, your morals, and your point of views. Many of these people will eventually become your customers.
Some of them may become co founders. Investors, employees, and supporters of your mission. And you can choose to do this on any platform you want Twitter, LinkedIn, Tik TOK, whatever, Indie hackers, Reddit, any of these, I chose Twitter. Cause a lot of my a lot of my first number one, Twitter was so easy.
It's 2018 Twitter, like before it became the dumpster fire that it is now, it was at the time had a bit of a warm, welcoming feeling. I think it still has now, but I'm just saying it was much more amplified back then. And a lot of. Indie hackers slash founders slash builders were on Twitter at the time, even now they're out there.
So I chose Twitter first. The other thing I want to say is here, a lot of them becoming customers. This happened so many times when I was an on deck, so much of our pipeline in terms of sales, in terms of the conversions, most of those people came from Twitter. My Twitter or the company's Twitter.
And even I'm seeing the same thing, even with my current business, which is building public fellowship, BIPF, all of the 40 fellows paid customers that came through Twitter. Every one of them, I think some of them came through podcasts, but I didn't do any public paid marketing. I didn't buy a banner anywhere.
None of that paid stuff. It was all organic and we plan to grow even bigger next year. And I think it will all be mostly, building public and organic. So why should you care? Because the pitch, the punchline in building a tech business, or even like any tech enabled business in 2023 is that if you just have a product, you just have you and I just started a, the next toothbrush company, there's a million toothbrushes in the world.
So product is no longer enough. It's distribution that makes it the king. Like Justin Kahn is great example talking about how first time founders, they're obsessed. I advise a lot of first time founders through the fund, utopic or through my own, the fellowship or through all these other ventures.
And I clearly see the distinction between the first time founder and a little bit of a. Seasoned founder. First time founder is trying to perfect the signup flow, perfect the pixels, perfect, like the things that don't even matter in, in the scheme of the audience point of view. But as a second time founder, third time founders are humble enough to realize that, distribution is what matters.
So how do you get the word out? How do you get people to care about your message and how do you like make sure that you serve their needs and so on? But yeah, distribution is king. This is a painful lesson I had to learn from my first startup. Guess who got the distribution king part really right?
Jesus. Just kidding. I could go to any hotel in America, like what do you find in the night desk or the drawer? You find a Bible. He nailed distribution. Even before the product it's always there wherever you want it. I thought that meme was too hard too fun to pass up, but yeah.