What Building in Public is Teaching me About my Mindset
I’m starting to build a bunch of music products, and it’s teaching me unexpected lessons about how my own attitudes and values can help or hinder the process of being an entrepreneur.
About Me
Where to start? Well, I’m a 30 year old from England who’s about to embark on building multiple music products in public.
I’ve headed up strategy and operations for two startups over the last 5 years. Both times I’ve had the freedom to do a bunch of entrepreneurial and experimental stuff without being the owner that bears the financial risk associated with those ideas.
It has taught me to fail fast and learn from what doesn’t work and scale what does, but on reflection, it’s also showed me that I’m risk averse right now. In fact, being operational, I’ve reigned people in at my current startup across my two years there. Still, there’s a burning desire to do my own thing to see if I can really pull if off. I’m scared, excited and I’ve dreaded the thought of doing this publicly, that’s for sure!
So Why Build in Public?
Since deciding to embark on this journey (which coincides with me leaving my job with some savings in tow), I’ve had a few hours in the evening this month to find a market, a niche and some services that I believe meet an existing need.
What I never thought I’d already have encountered would be the anxieties around failure, the countless hours spent pointlessly building before validating, and the isolation of going it alone.
In the past month of working in the evenings, I’ve hustled hard and worried way too much before launching anything or sharing it with people. This constant pushback and lack of accountability to the world is a clear personal hindrance. Building in Public solves that, be it through increased confidence, guilt, or whatever else.
It’s important to put my products out there by any means necessary. I reckon telling the internet and adding value where I can will be useful. The biggest thing for me though, is having that confidence to actually talk to people and communicate my ideas and experiences. I’m hoping this transparency makes it easier when I’m talking to prospects and clients in the future, too.
What I’m Going to Do
Here’s my mini set of rules to live by that should make my mantra for building in public clear.
Contribute to a community to gain confidence: I joined Kevon Cheung’s Build in Public community initiative, Public Lab and said hello to the community last night. It was quite difficult for me to conjure up the confidence to say hello to strangers, but we’re all on the same mission with different experience and expertise. We can really positively impact one another if we put the time in.
By the way, it’s incredibly supportive and I feel ten times better this morning waking up to messages from people who actually care about what I’m doing. I’ll be just as invested in them too, which is a brilliant outcome all round.
Give, Give and Give: I have some knowledge of scaling young, small, service-based companies and I have got my hands dirty for five years now. I’ve played down that experience and learning far too many times because I’ve been benchmarking against Fortune 500 thought leaders. Different people, different journey, different context.
I have business and music knowledge to share and enrich others, so it’s time to get involved.
Be Authentic: No first drafts, no worrying about whether sentences read right. I’m going with gut instinct and doing everything first time and getting on with the task at hand. I will act first and ask for forgiveness later. Even if this post ends up reading as garbage to some of you, the inane ramblings were genuine, haha!
Overcome Imposter Syndrome: I have spent too long worrying about metrics and thinking I don’t have the skills or clout to carve a reality in music entrepreneurship for myself. However, I made ringtones for my school friends when I was 11/12 years old and they paid me. Supply and demand. It wasn’t a problem then. I need to rediscover the fun of it all and see all of this as an adventure.
Share Losses as well as Wins: I am pleased for everyone who’s making money from side hustles and leaps of faith. But I think we all need to remind all those who are silently watching when we fail, because we want them to join the community with a voice, rather than quit and go back to the 9 to 5 that isn’t quite working for them.
Build a Community of Friends: Growing myself as an authority in the online space should be simple, in theory. Help people, get to know them, like and trust them, stay true to your craft and be transparent and the rest follows.
Writer Shorter Posts: This is so long, surely nobody needs a wall of text.
Stay Uncomfortable: I will learn more and more about myself and others whilst I accept wandering into strange new territory.
The Take Away
Announcing your intentions to the internet can make things seem pretty real, as your musings become a tangible part of the journey. Follow me on Twitter to see a smaller stream of consciousness around brand audio, music production, entrepreneurship and the perils of being a first time indiehacker/solopreneur/ insert interchangeable term.
Surprisingly, all of my family/friend support network seem far more confident that I can do this than I did, without me really going into much detail about what on earth I’m doing. At the height of a pandemic, that’s really encouraging!
If you’re building something and you’re scared, feel like an imposter but occasionally feel like you could actually pull this off, then I am you! So say hello!
