Building in Public Almost Killed Us
The dark side of radical transparency: what happens when your competitors, your team, and your investors can read everything you're thinking.
Maya Chen is the co-founder and CEO of Luma, a B2B event management platform. She became known for her radical transparency about the founding journey, posting daily updates to 40K+ followers.
Maya Chen started posting daily founder updates on LinkedIn when Luma launched. Six months in, she had 40,000 followers, two acquisition offers, and a team that was burning out from performing in public.
In this episode, Maya gets honest about what building in public actually costs. The employee who quit because their bad week became content. The competitor who reverse-engineered their roadmap from her posts. And the investor who used her public posts against her in a term sheet negotiation.
Key themes: founder transparency, building in public, content strategy, team dynamics when the company is a personal brand.
- Building in public is a marketing strategy, not a personality. Treat it like one — with an editorial strategy, a content calendar, and things you don't post.
- Your team didn't sign up to be characters in your founder story. Transparency about your journey is fine. Transparency about their performance is not.
- Competitors read your posts. Don't share your roadmap. Share your principles.
- The follower count is a lagging indicator of a positioning choice, not a business outcome. Maya had 40K followers and a team in crisis simultaneously.
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