An excerpt from RenderATL's Culture & Code podcast Episode #7: Building in Public with Lola Ojabowale (@ojabowalola). This was a special Render Vault episode with Taylor McNeil (@ThatDevTaylor) as host:

Taylor:
Yes, for sure. I think a lot of people love that startup founder story and traditionally that's not something that you really get to see until it's, oh, 10 years later they're being acquired. And now there's a biopic about everything that happened. And we all know that's not how companies are built. That's not how things run. I think the whole build in public movement is super duper interesting. And so, I would love to know your take on it and like how you're doing it at Lunch Pail Labs.

Lola:
Oh yeah, for sure. So I completely agree with that. Yeah. I think for me, build in public kind of serves three, I'd say, main purposes. First, it's really helpful. Just for the person building to have this kind of record of, "Hey, we look back, this is what the company was doing. This is how I was thinking about things. This is the sort of products I was shipping. And these are how all of that has evolved."

Second piece, I think people have found that just by consistently sharing your story, sharing what you're working on, especially if you're building in public in an area where your potential customers live, is a natural and seamless way for lead generation. Finding new opportunities. Even with Lunch Pail Labs. All of the work that we do right now has been inbound, and a lot of it has been because somebody read a blog post or heard something on a podcast, or saw a tweet. By build in public, I think of is you are taking daily or whatever, cadence shots, you're putting shots into the universe. And you only need to couple baskets for you to really start kicking something off the ground.

And then when people know what you're working on and what you're trying to do, it's a natural way to get help as well. If you're stuck on something. If you're looking at hiring somebody down the road or growing the team. I think build in public also helps with that as well. Because folks can see, this is what it's like to be here and having that transparency out there.

And then I think that the third sort of bucket and reason that build in public is helpful is just that by you, sharing your story, and sharing what you're doing and being honest about it and authentic. Not just the "Hey, everything is awesome all day."

This was an excerpt from Culture & Code, a podcast brought to you by RenderATL that is focused on leveling up your tech career and exploring new technologies.

You can listen to the full episode and read the complete transcript on our website here.