It’s no secret that I love building in public. I’ve been building in public before it was even called building in public.
Building in public with a side project can be hard especially if you have a day job.
I’ve run into issues in the past for too much building in public.
More than once, I’ve been told in no uncertain terms that, if I wanted to keep my job, I needed to stop posting about my side projects. Keep in mind I was doing both the work and posting (usually very late at night) on my own time.
Once I was even told me that I needed to stop working on side projects entirely. Effectively saying that if I had enough spare time to work on side projects I wasn’t putting enough hours in for the company.
Laws used to be a little vague (I am not a lawyer, get real advice if you’re concerned about this), and employers took advantage to keep employees away from working on things while employed.
Things have gotten a little clearer. As long as you are not working on something that competes with your employer. As long as you are not using employer resources (computer, or intellectual property). As long as you work on your own time. Work on your side projects.
Some companies do allow you to work on side projects on their time (Google was famous for this, with their 20% rule), but you typically have to get approval before doing so, and ownership of the work is typically held by the company. This is not common for early stage companies.
How to build a side project in public?
The simplest and often best approach (if you have a good relationship) is to talk about it with your manager before you get started.
Unfortunately, unless your manager is in senior management of the company, they may not be the people that make the ultimate decision about these things.
Reasonable managers will often encourage you to work on your side projects. They know that side projects, can lead to growth for you, both personally and professionally. You’ll often learn new skills that you can apply at work for them.
In the event that your project takes offs, you’re more likely to leave the company in an orderly way and on good terms. Depending on the project and your company, I’ve even seen it lead to new business for both parties.
Sometimes it’s better to ask for forgiveness than permission. As I mentioned, IANAL, but assuming you’re not doing anything wrong, just go ahead and build your side project.
There is a good chance that nobody at your company is following you on social media, and so won’t see your build in public posts.
You may be discovered at some point, but you deal with it at that point.
If you really are worried about the security of your day job, go faceless.
How many SaaS projects have you seen that don’t list team members, don’t give you public information about the company, but seem to be doing well.
How many accounts have to you seen on social media that aren’t a persons name, don’t have a picture of their face as their avatar, and have lots of followers.
It’s entirely possible to be faceless/anonymous on social media, and still grow a solid following. You may at some point in the future share more information. Privately, you’ll have to reveal who you are.
Discussing your project with potential users, is not something that has to happen in public.
I’ve taken all 3 of these approaches In the past.
I’ve talked about side projects, when people I worked for & with didn’t care. I’ve talked about side projects with encouragement from my employer. A few of you know the faceless accounts I used to post about side projects when my employer wasn’t so supportive of my side project work.
Building in public isn’t the only way to build your side projects, it’s my preferred method. If you can’t build in public because of your day job, you shouldn’t let that stop you working on your side projects.