Only showing the final, polished product makes others feel inadequate and behind. More importantly, it prevents you from building an engaged audience by not sharing the journey. Sharing mistakes, pivots, and behind-the-scenes struggles gives others permission to start messy and builds their curiosity for your eventual launch.

Instead of hiding early product flaws, founders can build a stronger community by openly sharing their mistakes and the correction process. This transparency makes the brand more relatable and human, fostering trust and loyalty more effectively than projecting an image of perfection.

Instead of hiding operational failures like 200 broken PR boxes, the founders create content about them. This authentic, "warts-and-all" approach builds community trust and often results in viral videos, turning a negative into a brand-building positive.

AstroForge's CEO Matt Gialich champions radical transparency, especially after setbacks. When their Odin mission failed, the company published detailed articles explaining exactly what went wrong and how they planned to fix it. This approach builds trust with stakeholders and institutionalizes learning from mistakes.

During diligence, an investable founder is transparent about current risks (e.g., a major customer account is in jeopardy) and presents a mitigation plan. This candor is more valuable and trust-building to an investor than a founder who projects a flawless, risk-free business.

Seemingly costly failures provide the unique stories, data, and scars necessary to teach from experience. This authentic foundation is what allows an audience to trust your guidance, turning past losses into future credibility.

Don't wait for a finished product to start marketing. Building in public by sharing challenges, ideas, and progress acts as a continuous "soft launch." This approach gets your audience invested in your story, building authentic trust and anticipation for your official launch.

To build trust without undermining competence, sellers should strategically share vulnerabilities. The key is to discuss past mistakes from which you've already learned and grown. Sharing a raw, ongoing struggle makes you seem incapable, while sharing a "post-mortem" failure demonstrates resilience, honesty, and expertise.

For founders without a large marketing budget, building in public isn't optional. Lindsay Carter attributes Set Active's initial hype to sharing behind-the-scenes content on her personal social media. She argues that consumers want to root for the underdog, and showing the story—failures and all—is the most effective way to build a loyal following from scratch.