Building in public helps women founders build credibility and community in real time. Learn what to share, what to skip, and how to get started.
Over the last few years, a new idea has quietly gained traction among founders: what if building the product could become the product itself?
Building in public has become the practice of sharing your process as it happens.
The decisions you’re working through, the things you’re testing, the lessons you’re learning in real time, rather than waiting for a success story to tell.
And for women founders specifically, it can be one of the most powerful things you do for your visibility, your community, and your business.
What Building in Public Actually Means
Building in public doesn’t mean posting your bank balance or narrating every anxiety spiral for an audience. It doesn’t require radical transparency about every business decision or a daily video diary of your work life.
It just means letting people see the thinking behind the thing you’re building — the why behind a product decision, the lesson from a launch that didn’t go as planned, the pivot you’re considering and why.
The goal isn’t vulnerability for its own sake. It’s connection. When you share the process, you’re giving people a reason to root for you and that kind of genuine interest converts into community in a way that polished content rarely does.
Why It Works (Especially For Women)
The research on this keeps pointing in the same direction: people buy from and support founders they feel they know.
Not the curated, highlight-reel version — the real one. When someone has watched you work through a problem, make a call, learn from a mistake, and keep going, they’re not just aware of your business. They’re invested in it. They’re invested in you.
For women founders, this matters even more. Women are historically underestimated in business — by investors, by clients, by peers who never expected to see them leading something.
Building in public is a direct counter to that. It’s proof of your thinking, your process, your expertise, accumulating in public over time. You’re not waiting for someone to give you a platform or a credential. You’re building credibility through visibility, one post at a time.
It also builds community in a way that most marketing tactics don’t. When you share a challenge you’re working through and someone responds with “I’m in the same position” — that’s not a follower, that’s a person.
And those people become your customers, your collaborators, your referral network, and sometimes your best business relationships.
The Fear Is Real and Also a Little Wrong
The main objection most founders have to building in public is some version of: “What if people see me struggling and think I don’t know what I’m doing?” It’s a reasonable fear. It’s also based on a slightly backwards read of how audiences actually respond to process content.
Watching someone navigate difficulty while continuing to move forward doesn’t make them look incompetent — it makes them look capable. There’s a significant difference between “I don’t know what I’m doing” and “here’s a decision I’m working through and how I’m thinking about it.”
One reads as lost. The other reads as thoughtful, experienced, and honest. Guess which one builds trust?
The founders who build in public most effectively are the ones who share from a place of reflection rather than reaction. Not “everything is falling apart” in real time — but “here’s something that didn’t work and what I learned from it.”
The timing matters. You don’t have to share in the middle of the mess. You can share once you’re on the other side of it, even if the other side is just a day later.
What to Actually Share
If you want to start building in public but you’re not sure what that looks like practically, here are the kinds of content that tend to land.
Decisions and the thinking behind them. Why did you price something the way you did? Why did you decide to niche down (or expand)? What made you choose one tool or platform over another? These posts give people a window into your expertise and your process simultaneously.
Lessons from things that didn’t work. Failed launches, clients that weren’t the right fit, strategies you tried and abandoned. Framed as learning rather than failure, these posts are some of the most shared and saved content on any platform. People are desperate for the honest version of the entrepreneurship story.
Progress markers that aren’t the final outcome. First client, first hire, first time you paid yourself a real salary, the month your revenue covered your expenses. These are all legitimate milestones worth naming.
Questions you’re sitting with. “I’m trying to decide between X and Y. Anyone done this?” is not a sign of weakness. It’s an invitation. And the responses often give you something useful while also building a thread of engagement that’s worth far more than a post that just broadcasts.
How to Start Without Overhauling Your Entire Life
You don’t need a new platform, a ring light, or a content strategy to start building in public. You need one platform where your people actually are, and a commitment to showing up there consistently. Pick one. Post once a week. See what resonates. Adjust from there.
Who I’ve Been Watching
Three founders I’ve been watching who are doing it well. All Canadian girlies (because if you know, you know). Each in a different season of life and entrepreneurship. All building in public and all proving that there’s no single blueprint for how to do it.
Karin Bohn is an interior designer and founder in Vancouver, documenting what it actually looks like to build a creative business from the ground up. She’s navigating client work, pricing, and the realities of running a design practice. Karin is sophisticated and elegant, but her approach to sharing her journey is refreshingly unpolished.
Sarah Kim is a creative and the artist behind Calgary-based Selah Paper. She’s past the scrappy startup phase and deep into the realities of running an established business: managing production, scaling thoughtfully, and figuring out what sustainable growth actually looks like when you’re not chasing hype. Sarah is like my best mom friend. We both have daughters, the same 3-product makeup routine and both of us shop at Structube home furnishings.
Keiana Byfield is in the early stages of building her marketing agency in Toronto. She’s in that beautiful, chaotic season of testing ideas, exploring different offerings, and learning what resonates—building her brand, her voice, and her business all at once. I’m convinced Keiana and I would be best friends if I was still in my twenties and living in Toronto.
What I’m Building in Public as a Founder
Karin is seasoned, but she’s still navigating the realities of running a creative practice. Sarah is in the establishing phase, figuring out what scaling and sustaining actually look like. Keiana is in the early experimental phase, testing ideas and finding what resonates.
Three different seasons. Three different approaches. All building in public.
The point isn’t that there’s one right way to do it. The point is that it works at every level. Whether you’re years in, growing something established, or just starting to figure it out, there’s value in sharing the process.
And honestly, I’m right there in it too.
As I build Women-Led — the platform, the interviews, the app — I’m figuring a lot of this out in real time. What resonates, what doesn’t, what people actually need versus what I think they need. Some things land. Some don’t. Some ideas evolve faster than I expected.
But that’s kind of the point. Building in public has forced me to articulate my thinking more clearly, to show up more consistently, and to let people see the work as it’s happening. Not just once it’s polished, packaged and published.
You don’t need to wait until you’ve arrived to start letting people in. You just need to be willing to show them where you are and invite them to come along for what’s next.
