Why you should build your product in public | Hacker News Reader

Why you should build your product in public

ryanhoover.me

42 pointsrrhoover16 comments

I've tried to build in public many times, but it sucks.

1. Spend more time to make the project public. 2. Most of the time no one gives you any feedback. 3. People do give feedback, you make improvements, and they disappear. Once that happens you're back to #2.

It's painful talking to yourself, especially after iterating several times, and spending the extra time to make it public.

I couldnt help but smile when I got your email. Brilliant use of feedback tools like redpen and inVision.

Especially since your audience has so much product design knowledge, tapping into that works perfectly.

I am so curious how this would play out for an audience who is not as tech savvy. My gut says it would still be highly beneficial and useful.

Thanks, Jon. :)

You're right, the feedback given by the Product Hunt community is unique and not representative of the average consumer. Since they are the users of the product, their feedback is highly relevant; however, like all people, they too don't really know what they want sometimes so it still takes intuition and experience to interpret effectively.

I'm interested in this. An app that shares your work-mode laptop to the web more/less all the time would be interesting. Is there anything that can do this in 1-to-web way for free (or willing to exchange for feedback) and where the viewer doesn't need a special viewer plugin (html5/h264)? Vimeo, Ustream broadcasting?

This isn't exactly what you're describing but you might be able to use Sqwiggle for this. They have an API you can hack on.

Seems the same as google hangouts more/less.

Looking for something that's 1:N anonymously without a viewer plugin... has a page somewhere that shows a live feed: vimeo, ustream or YT but free to stream.

Takes balls to do this, especially given so many detractors out there.

glares at HN commmunity

There's no bravery, or merely even resilience, involved with listening to and learning from criticism of one's product.

Sometimes ideas are just plain bad. Sometimes implementation are just plain bad. If somebody wishes to express such sentiment, then that's a perfectly fine thing to do, and in fact it should be encouraged.

You should already be your own biggest detractor, all day, erry day. If you aren't, you're in for a rude awakening.

To be honest, i think this suggestion can only applied to someone that 'backed-by-community'.

Normal people that don't have 'friends' will not getting much feedback when trying to do so.

What do you think, communities? :)

I'm taking baby steps in this direction with my startup but the biggest reason I can is because of people like Ryan that provide the inspiration to do so.

Thanks, ASquare. :)

I've been inspired by the startups I mention in the post and a few people in particular: Joel from Buffer, Sandi from Quibb, and Danielle from Mattermark.

This is the way it should be done. Honest and transparent ! Big up to Ryan for his hard work

Thanks, Maxime! You and the Algolia folks have been awesome supporters. :)

OMG THIS IS THE BEST THING I’VE EVER READ. CHANGED MY LIFE.

But seriously, I try to over share with my close friends because I know I can handle their criticism. Impressed by Ryan's courage to receive such personal feedback from anyone on the internet.

You're getting downvoted, but it's not really clear why. I'll upvote you if you explain what you meant. It seems like to the downvoter, you are being snarkily sarcastic with your caps.

Whereas, perhaps you are satirizing snarkily sarcastic comments? Or you genuinely feel that way? If you explain a bit I'm sure your comment will do fine.

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