Building in public comes down to a few core things: marketing your product, staying sane, and getting noticed. It’s a way to get people talking about what you’re building before it’s even done. The journey itself becomes the story, pulling in an audience that feels connected to your work.
For a lot of solo founders, though, it’s not just about visibility. It’s about support. Building something alone can be isolating, and sharing your progress becomes a way to stay connected, even when you’re grinding away in a room by yourself. The openness keeps you grounded and helps ward off the burnout that comes with long stretches of isolation.
It also puts you on the radar of other entrepreneurs and investors. They see what you’re up to and can offer feedback, partnerships, or even funding without you having to chase them down. You’re essentially creating a public portfolio of your work in real time.
Some people also use it as a humblebrag—a way to show off without being too obvious about it. That’s fine if that’s your thing, but for most, it’s a way to turn the lonely process of building into something more connected and human.
Definitely agree. Sorry if the article sounds a bit negative, but I'm overall still in favor of building in public, for various reasons like the ones you mentioned.
The issue is not whether startup alternatives exist, it is more in my mind that no mid-market companies exist because they are taken out at the knees before they threaten the incumbents through acquisitions.
It eventually becomes impossible to avoid doing business with them.
I guess it’s hard to know if there should be significantly more mid market companies or not - I work in the space and am aware of hundreds of them, but perhaps with the size of adtech that number should really be thousands
That isn't a useful link. They seem to be one of those easily parodied groups where the goal is to produce a vision and they are in the planning phase of leveraging their synergies.
I don't see anything where they outline what we are being kept safe from.
The important thing is consultants and PhDs get paid and then they can attend conferences to talk to each other and come up with ideas of what their job is.
Nothing like an open canvas with vague fears and a future of undefined risk to get a whole industry of these people funded in no time.
I think home EV charging equipment is heading in the same direction as well. Very few have local and open APIs and instead depend on the vendors cloud service for control.
I don't know where you live, but in Europe there is a standardized backoffice management protocol that you can link up to basically anything in modern chargers. Except the cheapest of the cheapest.
I have mine running through EVCC.io, setting it up was as simple as throwing that thing in a docker container and figuring out the IP address of the chargepoint.
Yeah, but EV chargers are not that complicated. They are just smart contactors, with maaaybe some load management (EVSE can command the vehicle to reduce the charging rate).
Worst case, you just buy another one. It'll set you back a couple hundred dollars. Unpleasant, but not a big deal.
Air conditioning systems can easily cost more than $10k.
I am confused - aren't these boxes basically fancy three phase outlets? They probably have some safety fuses and some comms equipment, but the 'core' of the system is basically copper wire that connects you to the grid.
> aren't these boxes basically fancy three phase outlets?
That entirely depends LOL
So for AC chargers you are correct - 1 or 3 phases that go through a relay and, where required by code such as in Germany, a DC-sensitive RCBO, plus a small control board negotiating with the vehicle and monitoring voltage/current on one side and, again depending on where required by code, negotiating with the grid operator.
DC chargers are one hell of another beast, these have to contain all of the above plus powerful rectifiers, smoothing capacitors, EMI compliance...
Here in the UK at least they're generally single phase and required to moderate the power delivered to the vehicle based on the current electrical load in the house because most properties have quite low main cut-out fuse ratings. Bonus complications if you have solar or want any kind of access control.
At least swimming pool equipment is mostly just turning things on and off. If you look at the controller board for any given pool "timer" it's just a bunch of relays (for the pump, lights, and valves/servos).
Temperature sensors are all standardized for the most part (well, they don't seem to be anything special) but I'm not sure about chlorinators... Mine has a strange (electrical) connector and 100% proprietary threads on the PVC connectors (that were easy enough to reverse engineer in OpenSCAD: https://www.printables.com/model/24144-t-cell-cleaning-stand).
Fortunately there's plenty of 3rd party competition for things like that. Even though I had a Hayward system I was able to purchase a compatible chlorinator off Amazon for a fraction of the price Hayward was charging.
I just spent an afternoon recreating the custom threads on a Hayward chlorinator for my dad so I could 3D print a temporary replacement part. These don’t even use standard pipe fitting thread. -_-
Technology doesn’t matter, it’s all about relationships between dealers and manufacturers (or dealer/distributor/manufacturer, I am unfamiliar with this particular industry.) That holds true both for HVAC and pool equipment (and fire alarm systems, irrigation, etc etc)
If you can’t sell your product to the dealers because there in bed with the incumbents and the incumbent products generate service call work for the dealer, it doesn’t matter how good the tech is.
This is a people problem, not a technology problem. It can’t be solved by a couple programmers.
Pool equipment isn’t usable out of the box like a car or a thermostat, someone has to install it and service/maintain it.
Unless you want to build your own nationwide network of installers, you’re relying on third parties who already have existing relationships with pool equipment suppliers, which is why I said it’s a people problem and not a tech problem.
Of course they are, but automating people out of low level work frees people to do higher value things in society... Besides this concern isn't about this startup but AI in general.
