Building UdharPay in Public — What I Shared, What I Held Back, and What Happened as a Result.
Building UdharPay in Public: The Honest Journey
Building in public is one of those startup strategies that sounds simple until you actually do it. Post updates. Share your journey. Be transparent. Grow an audience. Get customers. The reality is messier, more uncomfortable, and ultimately more rewarding than any description of it suggests.
Why I Decided to Build in Public
Three reasons:
- Accountability: When you tell nobody you are building something, it is easy to quietly abandon it. Public updates create social pressure to continue.
- Customer Development: Early customers follow startup content on Instagram. Building in public is disguised customer development.
- Differentiation: UdharPay has a face — mine — and a story. This is a sustainable competitive advantage over faceless corporate competitors.
What I Shared
I shared everything that felt genuinely useful or interesting:
- The day I decided to build
- Google form responses validating the idea
- Tech stack decisions and debugging frustrations
- UI screenshots at every stage — even the ugly early versions
- Revenue projections, pricing decisions, and WhatsApp message templates
What I Held Back
I held back three types of information:
- Customer data (even aggregate/anonymized)
- Specific technical vulnerabilities until fixed
- Moments of genuine despair before processing them privately
What Happened as a Result
The results were non-linear and surprising:
- A four-hour post got 12 likes, an 8-minute post at 11 PM got 340 likes and 4 DMs about the product.
- The 73 waitlist signups came entirely from building in public — no paid ads or press.
- Three shop owners reached out to beta test, including one managing 47 shops — suggesting a bulk reminder feature now on the roadmap.
- A Bengaluru developer offered to be a technical advisor after following my journey.
The Uncomfortable Truth About Building in Public
It requires you to be interesting more often than naturally possible. Ordinary days — fixing bugs, refining copy, solving small problems — are part of the reality. Sharing process instead of only results keeps the audience engaged.
Advice for Founders Considering Building in Public
- Start before you are ready: Imperfect first posts are better than perfect posts delayed.
- Pick one platform: I chose Instagram — cross-post to others but invest where your audience is.
- Share specific numbers: "73 people signed up in seven days" beats "we got some signups."
- Specificity is key: Concrete reality encourages shares and engagement.
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