The Price of Building in Public

It's been a little bit over 6 months since I started working on my AI resume builder.

Here's something deeper I learned about the tension between authenticity and performance.

When I first started my journey as an indie maker, I was excited by all these creators sharing their journey openly - revenue numbers, failures, successes, all of it. It felt refreshing and real.

I remember seeing indie hackers posting their wins and losses, sharing screenshots of their Stripe dashboards, and talking about their journey. The transparency was inspiring.

Was I willing to do the same?

A few years later, I discovered what I now call the "performance threshold." Your performance threshold is the point where you stop sharing authentically and start curating a narrative that you think your audience wants to see.

I noticed this recently when I was working on my AI resume builder. The product was making a few hundred dollars a month - not life-changing money, but progress nonetheless. But I found myself hesitating to share updates.

Why? Because the numbers weren't as impressive as others in my space. Because I worried about being judged. Because I felt pressure to maintain an image of constant progress.

What really struck me was seeing other creators carefully orchestrating their "authentic" moments. That carefully crafted tweet about a failure, strategically shared to demonstrate resilience. The "random thoughts" that were anything but random.

That was the year I realized that "building in public" often becomes its own form of performance art.

Which approach is right?

That decision is always a personal choice. However, what I want to point out is that there's always a price to be paid for building in public -- especially if you're trying to maintain a certain image or grow an audience.

The question is: At what point does the performance overshadow the authenticity?

At what metaphorical "performance threshold" do you stop curating and start sharing what's really happening?

Some people have no limits.

They will share anything needed to grow their audience -- manufacture drama, create artificial urgency, spin every setback into a "lesson" -- often losing touch with their authentic voice in the process.

Where are your limits?

How much performance is too much?

Those are personal questions and choices. However, I will say this:

If you have no limits... If you will share anything, spin anything, perform anything to build your audience, then what kind of creator will you be when you finally have that audience?

The most valuable thing you have as a creator isn't your follower count or your revenue numbers. It's your authentic voice. Once you lose that in pursuit of metrics, what's left?

Sometimes the bravest thing you can do is acknowledge your own performance threshold - that line where sharing stops being authentic and starts being performative. For some, that might mean stepping back entirely to focus on building. For others, it might mean being radically honest about the messy middle, even when the metrics aren't impressive.

Because while tweets may drive engagement, it's the authentic work - and the authentic voice behind it - that creates lasting impact. The real challenge isn't choosing between performance and authenticity, but finding your own sustainable balance between the two.