# Building in public without a megaphone

> Wondering whether it is possible to build something of your own quietly, and whether that defeats the point.

- Type: note
- Published: 2026-09-13
- Topics: solo-company, independence
- Canonical: https://cmlonder.com/notes/building-in-public-without-a-megaphone

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Building in public usually means a megaphone: daily revenue screenshots,
milestone announcements, a narrative that grows alongside a follower
count. There is plenty of evidence that this works. I am just not
convinced it is something I can do.

The question I want to ask is whether openness without the megaphone is
possible. Let the work be visible without being broadcast. This site is
part of that experiment; I publish the unfinished things too, and I tell
nobody.

Here is where I am suspicious of myself. The benefit of building in
public comes from two things: feedback and accountability. Remove the
megaphone and feedback drops sharply, because nobody comments on what
nobody sees. Accountability partly survives, since a published thing is
different from an unpublished one, at least to me.

So maybe the value of the quiet version comes from the inside rather
than the outside. Having to write it down forces the thought to finish.
That does not require readers, only a publishing threshold.

Leaving this note unfinished because there is not enough data yet. In
six months I want to come back and record what happened: did quiet
openness produce any feedback, or did it just turn into a diary I keep
for myself.