On Starting in Public

There is a version of building in public that is performance.

It is the daily updates, the follower counts, the carefully crafted vulnerability. It is optimised for engagement, not for honesty. It is about looking like someone who is building, not about actually building.

I am not interested in that version.

This site is an attempt at the other kind. A place to document what I am working on, what I am thinking about, and what I am learning - without the performance layer. Without the pressure to make every update interesting or every insight profound.

Why bother

The honest answer is that I think writing forces clearer thinking. When I have to explain something in words, I discover what I actually understand and what I am still confused about. The act of writing is the act of thinking.

There is also a compounding argument. A body of work accumulates over time. The essays I write now, even if nobody reads them, will be useful to me later - as a record of how my thinking has evolved, as a reference for ideas I have worked through, as evidence that I have been thinking seriously about these things for a long time.

And there is a credibility argument. The best way to establish that you are serious about something is to show your work over time. Not to announce that you are serious, but to demonstrate it through consistent, thoughtful output.

What this is not

This is not a newsletter. I am not trying to build an audience. I am not optimising for shares or subscribers.

This is a public notebook. Some of what I write will be useful to other people. Some of it will only be useful to me. I am okay with that.

The goal is to think clearly, write honestly, and build a record of the work over time. Everything else is secondary.