SPECIAL SERIES: The Power of Building in Public | Bathroom Break #53 🚽

Summary

Episode Summary: SPECIAL SERIES: The Power of Building in Public | Bathroom Break #53 🚽

Release Date: April 28, 2025
Podcast: The Marketing Millennials
Hosts: Daniel Murray & Jay Schwedelson

In this special episode of The Marketing Millennials, host Daniel Murray teams up with Jay Schwedelson from the Do This, Not That podcast to delve into the transformative concept of building in public. Titled "The Power of Building in Public," this episode is part of their collaborative series, Bathroom Break #53, which offers quick yet insightful marketing tips tailored for professionals on the go.

---

Introduction to Building in Public

Jay Schwedelson opens the discussion by defining building in public as the practice of transparently sharing the entire journey of creating a product, brand, or business. This includes showcasing successes, failures, and the challenges encountered along the way. He emphasizes its universal applicability, stating:

“Building in public is for everybody. You know, people think building in public might be for like a small startup and it’s not for them. There may be a big brand or whatever, but it’s for everybody.”
[04:48]

Daniel Murray concurs, highlighting the growing trend on platforms like TikTok where creators share both their final content and the behind-the-scenes process. He notes that these behind-the-scenes videos often garner significantly more views:

“They’ll see TikTokers post two videos now and one video is the video that they made and then the behind the scenes of how they made the video...the behind the scenes of how they made the video is 5x views of what the original video.”
[03:25]

---

Why Building in Public Works

The hosts explore the reasons behind the effectiveness of building in public:

1. Desire to Understand the 'Why': Audiences crave the rationale behind decisions. Sharing the "why" fosters a deeper connection and understanding.

2. Insider Access: People enjoy feeling like they’re part of an exclusive journey, gaining insider knowledge about the brand’s evolution.

3. Humanizing the Brand: Showcasing struggles, debates, and failures makes the brand appear more relatable and authentic.

4. Diverse Perspectives: Featuring various team members, such as founders and product managers, provides a multifaceted view of the brand’s development.

5. Interactive Feedback Loop: Engaging the audience through polls and questions allows for real-time feedback and community-driven improvements.

Daniel Murray emphasizes the importance of presenting the "messy" aspects to enhance relatability:

“They also want to see the messy stuff. Because the messy stuff shows like the struggles, the debates, the failed tests, the tough roadmap makes your brand feel like more human.”
[07:48]

Jay Schwedelson supports this by sharing an example from the Amy Porterfield podcast, where technical difficulties were aired, leading to increased relatability and connection with the audience:

“Leave in the messy parts. Because that’s the stuff that we all feel how we get connected to a brand.”
[07:48]

---

Practical Tips for Building in Public

The hosts offer actionable strategies for implementing building in public:

1. Consistent Sharing: Regularly update your audience with progress reports, challenges, and milestones.

2. Incorporate Hooks: Ensure every piece of content has an engaging hook to capture and retain attention.

3. Highlight Founders: Involve the founders to provide a personal touch and build trust. Daniel mentions:

   “You need like the founder has the story has the pain point is a face that will probably be there for a long time.”
   [08:38]

4. Showcase Diverse Roles: Feature different team members to present various viewpoints and contributions to the project.

5. Engage the Community: Use interactive tools like polls and Q&A sessions to involve the audience in decision-making processes.

6. Be Transparent About Failures: Don’t shy away from sharing setbacks. Transparency fosters authenticity and trust.

Daniel Murray adds a crucial reminder:

“It’s a great way to get a feedback loop because as you’re going through this process, you can ask polls, questions to your audience.”
[07:48]

---

Examples of Successful Building in Public

The hosts cite several companies effectively employing the building in public strategy:

• Oats Overnight: Utilizes ads that narrate their brand story, product testing, customer feedback, and challenges, creating an engaging and transparent narrative.

• Crumble Cookie & Notion: Both have leveraged building in public to involve their communities in product development and iterate based on real-time feedback.

• HubSpot & Dharmesh Shah: Dharmesh regularly shares his spontaneous ideas and product launches on social media, fostering a dynamic and interactive community.

Jay Schwedelson praises Dharmesh from HubSpot for his developer-centric approach:

“He’ll come up with an idea in the middle of the night. The next day he’ll go on social...he’s like, you know what? I think agentic AI is going to be a big deal.”
[05:58]

---

Conclusion and Key Takeaways

Building in public is a versatile and powerful marketing strategy that fosters transparency, authenticity, and community engagement. By sharing the complete journey—including successes and failures—brands can create deeper connections with their audience, receive invaluable feedback, and humanize their business operations.

Final Thoughts from Daniel Murray:

“People want the insider scoop. So I think this is a great way to make people actually have a fandom of your brand.”
[08:38]

Jay Schwedelson encourages listeners to embrace the messy parts of their journey to enhance relatability and build a loyal community.

---

Notable Quotes

• Jay Schwedelson:
  “Building in public is for everybody... it’s for everybody.”
  [04:48]

• Daniel Murray:
  “They also want to see the messy stuff...makes your brand feel like more human.”
  [07:48]

• Daniel Murray:
  “It’s a great way to get a feedback loop because...you can ask polls, questions to your audience.”
  [07:48]

• Jay Schwedelson:
  “Leave in the messy parts. Because that’s the stuff that we all feel how we get connected to a brand.”
  [07:48]

---

Connect with The Marketing Millennials

Join the conversation and become part of The Marketing Millennials community:

• LinkedIn: The Marketing Millennials
• Instagram: @the_marketing_millennials
• Twitter: @Dmurr68
• Newsletter: Sign Up Here

If you found this episode valuable, share it with friends and follow the hosts on their respective platforms for more actionable marketing insights.

Transcript

[Daniel Murray]

Foreign. Welcome to a new special series called the Bathroom break. That extra 10 minutes you either have to listen to marketing tips or use the bathroom. Or both. But I don't recommend both. But that's your choice.

[Jay Schwedelson]

This collab is going to be super fun. We have Daniel Murray from the Marketing Millennials and me, Jay Schwetelson from the do this, not that podcast and subjectline.com each episode in the series, we are going to go over quick tips about different marketing top. And if you want to be in the bathroom, fine, just don't tell us about it. Thanks for checking it out. All right, we are back for Bathroom Break. This is Jay Schwedelson from Do this. Not that. I'm here with the Daniel Murray from the Marketing Millennials and we're going to be talking about the power of building in public. But before we do that, I always like catching up and knowing what the hell is Daniel watching right now? So what is it you go home, you're watching on tv? What are you putting on right now? I need to know.

[Daniel Murray]

So there's two shows I'm watching one. Me and I are watching your Friends and neighbors on Apple tv. It comes out every Friday. There's only three episodes. I kind of like having a weekly show since White Lotus is gone, and I'm kind of still recovering from that. And then I went back into the archives. I know this is a show that came out 2020, but it's like. But have you seen the show Industry?

[Jay Schwedelson]

I saw a few episodes of Industry. It's not bad. It's okay. You're a nerd that you're watching that. I want to ask you a question about Friends and Neighbors, though. So everyone that's watching this with Jon Hamm, whatever. I don't mind Jon Hamm, but a big part of it is has to do with very expensive watches. There's a lot of talk about very expensive watches in there. Are you like a. A watch snob? Loser. Like, do you have, like, expensive watches? Are you a total loser like that?

[Daniel Murray]

This is actually a funny thing about watches is I wear an Apple watch and Ari begs me to take it off. When I go out for dinners and like to see people, like, in public. She'll say, take off your watch. The Apple watch. It's embarrassing. So I don't have any watch except an Apple watch, and I'll probably stay like that, but it's still funny. Ari just makes me take those off.

[Jay Schwedelson]

That's amazing.

[Daniel Murray]

What about you?

[Jay Schwedelson]

I'm an Apple watch guy. I'M not. I, I, I. There's no chance you would ever catch me being a watch loser. But I was out to dinner with somebody this past weekend and the dude had two watches. He had an Apple watch and like a loser expensive watch. On the other hand, I'm like, bro, what's the point of that? It's spot selling time. You look like such an ass. It was unbelievable.

[Daniel Murray]

You only could pass off if you have like a whoop in that like but if you have an Apple watch.

[Jay Schwedelson]

It was an Apple watch. It was amazing. Anyway, let's jump into it. So we're talking about the power of building in public. I would say the number one content format that is viral, that gets engagement, big brand, small brand is this idea of building in public. And let me just define what it means and I want to get Daniel's take. So building in public, if you really don't know what that means, it's really sharing the behind the scenes process of creating a product or a brand or an entire business and you're sharing all of it, the good stuff, the wins, the fails, the hurdles you have to overcome and being very transparent about it. Are you on board with know the value of, of doing a building in public?

[Daniel Murray]

Yes. And the one thing people love seeing and I've been seeing this trend on Tik Tok too and this is going a little tangent on behind the scenes but you'll see TikTokers post two videos now and one video is the video that they made and then the behind the scenes of how they made the video and the behind the scenes of how they made the video is 5x views of what the original video. Because people want to see like the how the why, how it was built. The that this wasn't just something that popped up overnight and that got me thinking about more content that people people want to see the raw unfiltered. Another company that's doing this really well in ads. So you don't always have to do it only on social. You could do it in ads, you could do it in other places is oats overnight is showing running ads on the story of how oats overnight became oats overnight and then how they test product flavors and how customers like this and how their flavors are all natural and how they almost went out of business. And it's really, it gets me hooked. People want to hear stories and real stories. So that's why I think it works very well. But why? What do you think people should do when they are building in public?

[Jay Schwedelson]

Well, first of all it's for everybody. You know, people think building in public might be for like a small startup and it's not for them. There may be a big brand or whatever, but it's for everybody. I love like Dharmesh from HubSpot. I love what he does. He's like a developer at heart. He'll come up with an idea in the middle of the night. The next day he'll go on social. He's like, you know what? I think agentic AI is going to be a big deal. I just launched last night agent AI and and I'm going to show you how it's going as it goes along. And then the beautiful part about doing that, he doesn't need to do that. HubSpot's enormous, right? You're getting real time feedback. People jump in the comments, oh, this is cool. But you should think about this, that or whatever. And while you're building in public, you're getting that reaction that can allow you to really dictate things and move things around. Like Crumble Cookie. A lot of the way that they've done stuff is building in public as well. Or even Notion, which is the collaboration tool and all. They've built their whole thing by building in public. I need to do more building in public. You know, even for our events. Somebody said to me, you all should like make a video series about planning your event behind the scenes and the chaos of it. And I'm like, you know what, I need to be doing that because that's what I would want to see.

[Daniel Murray]

This is break down a little bit of like some things that people should think about is the reason why this works. Like for example, like the reason why people like people want to hear the why not only like the what. So like they want to tell. They want to know why they made the decision. You made a decision. Because people love feeling like they're insiders. Yes. Like they want to feel like they're part of something. They also want to see the messy stuff. Because the messy stuff shows like the, the struggles, the debates, the, the failed test, the tough roadmap makes your brand feel like more human. Like you're going through real struggles. And then also the third thing is people like characters like they want to know like the characters and in the show and same as Oats overnight does this really good in ads. Like the founder, the VP of product, the VP of marketing, the director of each commerce. There's different characters in this show that are show making the brand feel more human. It shows different point of Views of what? Because everybody has a different point of view of how things are going. And also the last thing I'll add on this is like, it's a great way to get a feedback loop because as you're like going through this pro process, you can ask polls, questions to your audience. Ask, like, what do they. Like, what do you do? So it's a very good testing ground to ask people. So those are the way I think about building in public. And then the last thing I think what people make a mistake is these are still videos. So every video needs a hook, even as it doesn't. So think. Don't just make videos. Like, think about what makes videos work and work backwards from that. I just wanted to add that as well.

[Jay Schwedelson]

Yeah. And you know, something you said is really important, which is leave in the messy part where you kind of screw up or whatever. I learned this just this past week. I was on the Amy Porterfield podcast. That's a big podcast. Whatever. And when Amy was starting to record it, she had all these technical issues. Things are going sideways when we started recording it. And then when she aired the episode, she included it and she was. And she talked about. She goes, we just went through like 10 minutes of really messed up stuff. But here we are. It happens to me too. Whatever. And then all the comments were like, oh, my God, I'm so excited to see that you had technical issues too, because so do I. And it's like the humanity of your business, I don't care how big or small you are, is what is relatable. So leave in the messy parts. Because that's the stuff that we all feel how we get connected to a brand.

[Daniel Murray]

Yeah. And I think also people want to know why you're making the decisions you're making in the thought process behind if you have a product or a service. Like, why did you decide to launch this service versus that service, this feature versus that feature, this flavor versus that flavor and go behind the scenes. People want to know the why they want the insider scoop. So I think this is a great way to make people actually have a fandom of your brand. And you talk. We talked a little bit before the show of like brands that are doing a new name. Some like poppy and. But you also the main. The most important per people that need buy in are. Are if you can get the founder to have buy in of this. You are really winning. Like you need like the founder has the story has the pain point is a face that will probably be there for a long time. If you and the series should last a long time. So make sure the founder is part of this as well, if you can. Otherwise, it's fine to do the, the. The marketing team and stuff like that, but the founder is a very important piece of this puzzle.

[Jay Schwedelson]

All right, so before we wrap up, we started with TV shows. There's a new, new season out of the show, you, which is the dude who's like a. A murderer. That Penn Bagley dude, Badgley dude, whatever. Do you. Are you going to be watching you on Netflix?

[Daniel Murray]

I watched the first season, then I kind of fell off. But I just did hear some clips on TikTok that he almost turned down the role of Dan and Gossip Girl, which would have been a pretty huge thing, but apparently he was like a acting since 12 years old, which is kind of crazy. And he was. Imagine being working since you're 12 years and burnt out at 20. He was like, burnt out before getting the Gossip Girl, but Gossip Girl changed his life. But still, it's got to be being.

[Jay Schwedelson]

A child actor, being young. I just saw, and I probably shouldn't talk about this, but I just saw Haley Joel Osment got, like, arrested because he was, like, drunk. The guy from the Sixth Sense, the kid that was in the movie the Sixth Sense, he's older now, but he was wasted saying really horrible things. I mean, it's so rare for a kid actor to come out normal. I mean, maybe that's what messed you up. Were you a kid actor or something?

[Daniel Murray]

No, as you could tell. But I could tell you were a performer for sure.

[Jay Schwedelson]

Oh, I did. I did a couple of high school plays. I did. It was really embarrassing. I didn't want to. My. One of my teachers was the. Was the drama teacher, and he told me, if you don't do the play, I'm going to fail you in this other class. So, yeah, so that was horrible. All right, let me tell everybody something. Listen, we're circulating this show. If you listen to this thing, put it up on Instagram, tag marketing, Millennials, Tag me. It's my full name. We will reshare that on our stories. Let us know that you're listening to the bathroom break. We will reshare every single person who tags us and talks about the bathroom break. You all are awesome. Daniel, you got anything else?

[Daniel Murray]

No, I will 100% re share it on our stories. Jay has almost 40,000 followers. Mark millennials has 151. We'll share it to our audience. If you tag that you listen to this episode or a takeaway from this episode or any of our episodes that we.

[Jay Schwedelson]

Amazing. All right, we'll see you guys in the next one. Daniel, come on, man. I gotta get back to work. Get out of there. All right, while he's still in there. This is Jay. Check out my podcast, do this, not that, for Marketers. Each week we share really quick tips on stuff that can improve your marketing and hope you give it a try. Oh, here's Daniel. He's finally out.

[Daniel Murray]

Back from my bathroom break. This is Daniel. Go follow the Mark and Millennials podcast, but also tune into this series. It's once a week, the Bathroom Break. We talk about marketing tips that we just spew out. And it could be anything from email, subject line to any marketing tips in the world. We'll talk about it. Just give us a shout on LinkedIn and tell us what you want to hear. Peace out.

[Jay Schwedelson]

Later.