Original Published Date: 28-06-23 **** ## Bringing incomplete self to fore We like to show a complete version of our selves to strangers. This is seen in many who have a large following on social media. We all want to be presented as a person who has everything under control. We spend sculpting away our self to become legible for the algorithms first and the followers who come from them. On the contrary, I believe in the act of bringing our incomplete self and work in progress ideas to the public. I like to use the word public over followers. It associates with a “1 - n” communication instead of feeling like shouting into a void. This post of being in public and building in public is to increase our odds of achieving goals and find mutuals who will help us build it better than we alone envisioned. ## Challenge After spending a good 9 years on Twitter and LinkedIn for over a year. Also, having written a newsletter for 37 editions. I have come to realise the complication of building in public for people who surround me. Why it is such a tough process to imbibe? Why people misunderstand it? ## My personal journey None of these thoughts are mine alone. They are a remix of ideas from folks I consider fellow mutuals. My personal experience has been a mixed bag. I have built my career by being a person who reaches out to people whose public work interested me to engage with them meaningfully. On the other hand, I have not found similar interest from others in my work. I have been sharing about my work/interests in public for the past few years. But, I am still solving for distribution. So, no qualms yet. Many get deterred by this lack of interest in their work on the social media as a reason to call this activity futile. But if you are earnest, things would take a turn for the better with enough reps. ![[IMG_0964.jpeg]] [Visa’s](https://twitter.com/visakanv/status/1666728285857021952?s=20) tweet distils the essence behind being in public. If you love what you do, no external motivation is required to talk about it publicly. If you do enough reps, you will know whether you still love it. For instance, I was sharing my learning of produce space with a hastag(#subjimandiapp) for my own archival [purposes](https://twitter.com/vsvivek93/status/1419608380935524353). ![[Tweet Screenshot IMG_0963.jpeg]] It started as a whim. I wanted to share about what I was experiencing as we execute. I was not able to find it from anyone. The media narrative was shallow and far from reality I witnessed on the ground. So, I started tweeting regularly. I did 33 posts filled with insights that I internalised. In the course of these tweets, a year happened, and we reached our [eventuality](https://www.subjimandi.app/blog/bringing-it-to-a-close/) as a company. But during that course of time, I could attribute this ongoing thread to help me build trust with fellow mutuals in the space. It didn’t reach a wider audience but it helped me find the people who were also engaging in similar topics. [Venky](https://twitter.com/venkinesis) is a fellow mutual who writes [agribusiness matters](https://twitter.com/agribizmatters) and engaged with some of my tweets earnestly. So, we started talking and have become good acquaintances now. When we announced our public closure. Venky’s public [recommendation](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/venkinesis_team-which-built-subjimandiapp-subjimandi-activity-6893876692872744960-CZWC) helped our cause. The other aspect that helped was our body of work/ideas in public. Everyone who took interest could access them. It created a sense of trust that we did the work rigorously in agri-space. There is no linear ROI on sharing publicly. Let me be clear about it. Yet, once you find people who share the same interest graph on topics you love. It is a drug you get hooked on. ## Mutuals on the inter-web For me personally, it is an act of finding fellow mutuals who don’t share a personal association with me through shared communities like college, office or neighbourhoods. The world of social media has reduced the barrier to maintaining a blog to share your words/thoughts to having a profile. Yet, dominant users of social media don’t post much. They spend time consuming other’s posts. A visible minority are the ones who have a wide reach and post for gaining engagement on these platforms. ![[IMG_0965.jpeg]] [Sari’s](https://twitter.com/sariazout/status/1673688497419329537?) tweet is what you should be aiming towards. Archiving your thoughts publicly for people to find you and become your mutuals. I wrote in '[[Tags as Frames]]' about tags which resonate with me. If and when someone in the future, it will tell them everything about how I approach life. ## Start with remixing [Visa’s](https://visakanv.com/marketing/solve-for-distribution/) post outlining what it means to solve for distribution which forms the second part of the process once you buy into the act of sharing publicly. Public posting doesn’t generate the higher chances of success alone. Building mutual group should be a deliberate practice. This section from visa’s post clearly lays it out for us(emphasis by me). > the “product” is your work itself – your tweets, your blogposts, your essays, your youtube videos, your book. I generally advise against making overly large/complex/ornate products w/o doing any audience-building work, without (at least partially) solving for distribution. > …. > I’d go further than that: it’s very hard to make any kind of **great work without riffing and parlaying with other creatives. the completely isolated genius**. it’s maybe possible in fields like math, or maybe music… but even einstein hung out with other nerds. > …. > if you do 100,000 tweets in isolation there’s a possibility nobody will ever care. **but if you do lots of replies to other people, there’s a good chance you can build relationships, then you can build a network/graph of friends, then you can build an audience, then a scene**. > You don’t necessarily need to be the smartest, the most competent, the most skilled and so on. you just need to be decent enough, and you can be the one that introduces everyone to everyone else, and there is great value in that. This is strategic advice. Visa is not telling us how to game our content, when to post or what hastags to use. Instead, he is walking us through the process of finding mutuals by engaging with their body of work with the intent of building it together. ## Tying it together This is not only for people who want to make a living through freelance. It is for everyone who enjoys their work and looking to learn from mutuals who share the same interests. I am a big proponent of building in public when it comes to founders/operators. It is hubris to believe you don’t require help as you progress in your startup or career. If you are a startup founder, it might help with finding your next teammates. And if you are an operator, may help you land your next job. But, the goal shouldn’t be any of these. Many that I know fault over here. They see building in public as means to an end. I differ. This is a way of existing in the knowledge economy and the digital world we inhabit. The investment of time and effort will result in outsized returns once you stick with it long enough. Sharing an archive of your work consisting of your thoughts, experiences, projects and successes helps people empathise with you and reach out to you if they find relevance. We live in a world with tools that help us signal our interest, build an audience, find mutuals and share gained knowledge. In essence, build a narrative of how we want to be perceived on our own terms. **** Tags: #personal #published