Arvid Kahl: Kevon Cheung is one of my favorite builders in
public. Today, we dive into his journey into entrepreneurship by
building in public is this massive opportunity catalyst and
how to strike a balance between working in front of an audience
and being a private person. Kevon is a hands on guy. You
will find a lot of tactical guidance in this conversation.
This episode is sponsored by acquire.com. More about that
later. Now, here's Kevon.
Kevon, welcome to the show. You're one of the most active
catalysts of the build in public movement and we can discuss this
specific term of building in public in a minute here. You're
educating many, many founders and creators on how to share
their journey in front of their particular audiences. And I
think you do it yourself really well, which is just another
wonderful way of teaching by doing. I really appreciate that
about you. I want to dive into all things building in public
with you today. And I'm a big fan of that movement myself. So
this is going to be a lot of fun. Let's start at the
beginning for you. How did you find your way into building in
public?
Kevon Cheung: Whew, wow, that's going to be a long story. But
I'm going to try to keep it like quite short. I started exactly
three years ago. So that would be November 2020. And I had a
couple chapters in my career before then. And I was running a
SaaS company. So obviously, I had no idea what I was doing. I
was the person who was having a solution in hand and then going
to a different persona and be like, can marketer use this? Can
educator use this? But at the same time, you know, that was
the biggest struggle. The second biggest struggle was that, you
know, I had investor, angel investor, not VC, thankfully.
And I had teams, but I realized I was like, working really hard
in my career building for founders and investor. And if
you just Google my name Kevon Cheung three years ago, you
probably wouldn't find much other than a few outdated blog
posts and my LinkedIn profile, which is also outdated. So I
have two daughters now. So that was the moment when my first
daughter was coming along. And I really want to re invent my life
at that point, like, I still want to work hard. I'm still
very passionate about what I do. But I think I need to invest
more time in the word compounding. So that was the
first moment when I went online and start reading what other
people are doing, started writing online, started sharing
whatever I'm learning at that moment. So that was the first
point. And then your question is like, getting into building in
public, right? I think is half, I discover myself like when I
bumped into this word, by research. I thought it resonate
with my personal values like honesty, transparency,
integrity, helpfulness is who I am in real life. So I thought, I
cannot talk about no code for two decades. I cannot talk about
Microsoft, which was really popular back then for two
decades. Building in public, I can't talk about for five
decades, six decades, that's okay. So that was like, just me
finding myself. But at the same time, I just spotted the
opportunity. I don't know how you came about building in
public. But for me, I saw a lot of people doing it on
indiehackers.com on Twitter. When I googled the word I found
for articles and pretty short, doesn't really explain much
other than the why. So I thought, hey, maybe I could be
the person to show people how to do it. So that was my first door
into the building in public world.
Arvid Kahl: Thanks for sharing this. And thank you also for
being so clear about, you know, the moment that had happened. I
find the most interesting part to me is that your children are
involved. That is really cool. Like the fact that and one thing
that really stands out to me with building in public in
particular, is like leaving a legacy that is something that a
lot of people want to do this for, right? They want to leave
more than just a couple of outdated blog posts. That's what
I hear from you. And that's what I hear from a lot of other
people who are interested in this. So that moment being so
pivotal to you making the choice to present yourself more and to
do it in public in front of your audience. I think it might have
to do with the actual act of becoming a parent. Do you think
that is related at all?
Kevon Cheung: I think so. I mean, of course at that point, I
wouldn't know how it felt to be a parent. But it's just like,
you know, my career has been around for not around but I've
been working hard in my career for like, nine years at that
point 9, 10 years. It just felt like it sucks if I just kept
going into that rat race, right? The word rat race. I remember
having this thought and I explained it to my wife, I could
start something now. Or I could go find a job. But then two
years later, I would be getting back to the same position. So
why keep making those like circles? Why not just try to see
if I can do something now? Of course, I'm in a lucky position.
So in my previous opportunities, they're quite like, well paid.
So I definitely like what's really comfortable. And I gave
myself like one year to see if I can figure something out. And if
nothing happened, I wouldn't be here talking to you about this.
And that's okay, as well.
Arvid Kahl: Do you think that to be successful at building in
public, you need to have kind of a safety financial safety
cushion?
Kevon Cheung: I think so. If you put it that way, I would think
so. Because the thing is, we know that building in public is
not like a straightforward strategy. It's not like sales
outreach. Like people say that's a numbers game, right? You reach
out to 3000 people, maybe 60 of them would say yes or something.
But building in public is, it's a long term thing. Like you
cannot just hope the result will come in six months, even six
months is quite short. I myself made $0 in the first six months,
even though that was intentional, but it's still kind
of prove that in order to build a business around this, with the
building in public strategy, like building a personal brand,
it takes time. And I realized, I observe a lot of people, the
people who rushed to the dollar, they will never make it. Because
people are quite smart, like they know who is just there to
squeeze the wallet and who's there to really help people.
Arvid Kahl: don't really trust them to be able to teach me the
thing. But people who've just appeared and all of a sudden,
are proclaimed expert without having any community involvement
and kind of reputation in the community, very untrustworthy.
And I think that the central core tenant of building a public
is trust, right? Like trust between the people who follow
you for the things that you have to share, for your audience to
be there and give you feedback. And all that trust is elemental
to all of this, really. I find this very, very relevant. And I
want to get to this, but you just mentioned your wife and
telling her about you wanting to start this journey. I think
that's something that we often don't really talk about is buy
in from our peers and our family. Because this is a
journey off not making much money for quite a while. And you
know that it's a long, long process. Building trust takes a
long time, like trust is very slowly built and quickly eroded.
So you have to be very careful along the way. And having a
support network, partner, partners, peers, whatever it
might be, it's pretty important. How did you convince your wife
and the people around you that this was a good idea? Did you
have to fight for it? Or did you have buy in from the beginning?
Kevon Cheung: Wow. I never really talked about this but
Arvid Kahl: Exactly!
Kevon Cheung: I'm glad you asked. I think she was quite
okay. I think because her dad was also an entrepreneur,
retired, because the industry was, you know, going down a
couple, like a decade ago. So she understood that in order to
build a better life, you really have to build something. You
cannot just be working for a job. I think she understood
that. And also, we're not living on the edge of our lives. So
that helped a lot. And we were actually both planner like we're
very organized people. So even before getting married and
having kids, we already say that okay, how much caretaking or
parenting do we want to do ourselves or versus outsourcing
to, you know, nannies or daycare center? And we said, oh, my
wife, Lydia, she would be you know, a part time tutor. She
would actually move her career into part time tutor in order to
free up the time for the kids but also make some money to help
with the family. So she was pretty okay. But I think oh, you
know what? She was my business partner kind of not in a way
that she's like involved in the business. But remember, I said
six months I didn't make any money. I fell into the trap. I
fell into that trap of just enjoying creating free stuff.
And let people praise me for that. You know, it's really fun
and you can keep going on if you know there's no financial
pressure. And people would be looking at you like oh, you're
so nice. You're the God right? But, you know, at six month
mark, she came to me. She's like, Kevon, when are you going
to start charging people? And I was like, oh, I woke up at that
moment. I'm like, oh, I need to monetize. I need to figure that
out. And it was hard. You know, it's not my first business, but
it is still hard to ask for money.
Arvid Kahl: Yeah
Kevon Cheung: And recently, she actually came to me again and
asked how my business is doing. And we have a pretty deep
conversation about, like, where the future of this is. And
honestly, I'll be honest, like, I feel that the economy's not
doing quite well right now. I heard from my friends that, you
know, everyone is kind of just holding tight. So it's another
reality check from her. But why I'm bringing this up is that she
is my partner so that she keeps me on track. And I'm very
thankful for that.
Arvid Kahl: Yup, I think you're lucky. And I think I'm lucky
too. I have the same situation Danielle, my partner. She's was
a business partner of mine. We had a business together, which
we built and sold, which was the foundation of me even being able
to do all the things I'm doing now. But
Kevon Cheung: Yeah, I saw that. Yeah
Arvid Kahl: Even now she's doing the exact same thing that Lydia
is doing for you, like she is coming to me and telling me,
hey, you should charge more. She literally said this, just a
couple like a month ago or so or two months, I guess at the time
that this comes out. And she looked at the prices of the
products that I have and said, this is too cheap, like your
stuff is worth more, so I doubled it. And it still sell as
much like in terms of numbers as I did before. Like she has a
much better grasp on what my stuff is worth than I do. It
feels like a typical creator thing. And it's so nice and so
important to have somebody to look at this from this bird's
eye perspective and say, hey, I know you love what you're doing.
I know you could do this for free forever. But this is a
human existence that needs money to be perpetuated. So please
make some more money. I mean this in the best of ways, right?
She's not asking for me to make more. She's just trying to
maximize the opportunity in that business. And I think having
that outside perspective is really important.
Arvid Kahl: Yes
Kevon Cheung: And I find this really funny. I find that we all
Kevon Cheung: And I think this because once we have the rate,
need that person to tell us that like your wife, like my wife
would tell me that. But I will also tell her, you should
increase your hourly rate.
we don't want to just suddenly change it, right? Why would we
change something that is going quite okay? And we need someone
like an outsider to tell us that. So is this kind of funny.
Arvid Kahl: It is funny. And I think it's often a self limiting
belief in a creator or in any person that has to set their own
prices, like freelancing, right? If you have somebody, if your
partner is a freelancer and works with other clients, like
there is a certain level of comfort and having
predictability. And you think that that is also great for the
person that you work for, okay, my prices are gonna be this. I'm
not going to ask for more. That way I can keep my job for
longer. Often, that's really not the case, right? Your experience
grows, your budget or their budget grows. And you can match
that by increasing your rates. You just have to have somebody
help you with it. And I think it's great if you have a partner
like this, I mean, that's the optimal position to be in. A lot
of people may not have that partner, at least not in the
same kind of business sense. But you can find other people around
you to surround you with to help you on your journey. And I think
that is what you've been doing with your cohort course. I have
this very, very strong sense that this is exactly what you've
been building consciously or not with the building in public
mastery cohort. Can you tell me a bit more about how that
happened? Because that sounds like that may have happened
around the time that your wife told you to make some money, is
that right?
Kevon Cheung: Sort of, but not right after. But the funny thing
is, I was going to talk about this. And then you just kind of
let me into it. I wanted to bring this up because other than
my wife, right? I actually had a student or member, whatever you
call them in my program and then a couple of days ago, she sent a
message to me. She's like, Kevon, like, of all the value
that you create, you're charging like pennies. You're not
charging enough. And I think you have maybe a self worth kind of
issue. Those are amazing feedback. I mean, is the truth.
But I can never imagine that a student of mine would tell me
that. And I think for people who just don't have that community
mindset, this is the benefit of community. Like I'm sharing my
knowledge with these people, right? But it's not like I
cannot take from them. Oftentimes, I learned so much
from them and they're kind of my accountability partner. So yeah,
this program, it was an iterative process. I think all
the entrepreneurs will say this. I actually started with a
building in public community. So a lot of people would be like,
oh, what's the difference? Isn't that the same thing? No, no, not
at all. When I first thought about, okay, I need to start
charging people. I thought I have the build in public
audience because I have that free guide that did pretty well.
It's easy, just put them in the same room and let them talk to
each other then just charge them a monthly fee. That's what I
did. And then I felt like, oh, my God, what am I doing? Every
day I wake up, I'm like, oh, these people are paying me just
$5 per month, not a lot, which is really a bad idea because
they don't even care. They just want to support me. And I had
this burden of like, I need to do something for that. So all my
attention went to them. And after four months, I shut it
down. And I said to myself, as a creator, I need to find out what
product types fit me the most community alone, not my cup of
tea. I'm sorry. I'm a community person. But I cannot run a pure
community that is just about connection. No, that's not for
me. And I kept digging. I thought, okay, maybe I can do a
challenge because I think I really enjoy teaching. I mean,
my background was running a kids coding school with the founder.
I was her left hand person for four years. So I thought, okay,
maybe I can try teaching. So if a community for building in
public didn't work, maybe I should really just break things
down and walk people through how to actually do it. But I didn't
jump into course creation. I did a challenge first because maybe
it's a better way. I actually just tweeted about this is a
better way to just get people to take action, courses, you know,
people watch it and don't do much. So, yeah, as I learned
from the people around me that had become build in public
mastery today, which is course community challenge. A bunch of
different stuff together. Yeah.
Arvid Kahl: So the challenge part is very interesting because
that's something that you rarely see in the whole course world,
right? It's about education and maybe community. But to have
like tangible, kind of like deadline based goals, that is
really cool. That is something that you saw successful
somewhere else and you kind of took that into your own world?
Kevon Cheung: Oh, that was more, I definitely noticed people
running challenges, but I didn't study too much into it. It was
mainly from my own understanding. So the thought
process was, I was running challenges. And I realize people
need to be taught before they can actually do a good job in
the challenges. So then I stopped the challenge. And I
went into live teaching. So a cohort based course where we
come together as a group 15-20 people and I will deliver my
lecture and do breakout exercise all together for four weeks. So
I did that for like, almost two years. And only recently, I was
thinking, maybe it's time to switch because me showing up and
do the teaching four times a year in the same format. I don't
think that's a good use of my time. So I switched to using a
very interactive way to do video lessons that allow students to,
you know, leave Loom comments or create posts in a community to
share their homework that work really well. But then I noticed
a new thing, which is now they're only learning but not
taking action in the real life other than the homework. So I
was thinking, oh, maybe I can bring back the challenge. So now
they do the video lessons curriculum. And once they're
done or maybe semi done, they don't have to be like fully
done, then they can do the challenge to actually practice
it. So a lot of my work is actually just yeah, my own
learning journey.
Arvid Kahl: That is very interesting. I have yet to
participate in such a situation such a course where there is a
video component and an active challenge at the same time. I
only know like either of them. So that's really a nice way to
integrate this. Interesting that you say that your time is worth
more than doing the same stuff over and over again. I think
that's a big problem with cohort courses. And I talked to Erica
Schneider recently and she also is running a cohort right now.
But she only wants to run one cohort. She doesn't want to
consistently run cohorts after cohorts because that also is
just a bit draining exercise. Like I've seen people use the
cohort like you did, I guess over a longer term, maybe then
just one but I see people use the cohort to really figure out
what the problems are to then make the perfect kind of self
paced content for those specific problems. Is that what you've
been doing? Is that what the result of this is?
Kevon Cheung: Oh, totally. Did you just read my latest tweet?
Because I was talking about what you said at the tweet.
Basically, I was talking to some people that you shouldn't be
creating a course up front as your first project, like,
creating a course, the people who want to take a course
usually are quite quiet. And I don't know if you experienced
this because you're fine. You're following course, right? People
just take it no matter you email them how many times they don't
respond. So imagine that's your first product. You're not
optimizing for feedback or for insights or signals. That's
pretty bad. But I keep telling people, hey, do a live workshop,
do a challenge. That's the kind of product that bring people
next to you. And you're buddying up. And no matter what you ask
them, they will tell you. So that's when you really
understand what you're teaching. And then you build a courses to,
you know, scale the revenue up. So exactly.
Arvid Kahl: Yeah, awesome. And in a way, this is also the thing
that is so hard about building in public, it's like, putting
yourself out there and actually connecting with people. And I
think that's what a lot of people have trouble with. Right?
That's one of the things that stops them from even trying is
to, I have to show up. I have to be right in front of people. And
I have to ask them about their problems. I don't even know
like, well how to ask right. I feel that there's a lot of,
again, self limiting belief in putting yourself out there
putting yourself in front of people. And maybe this is a good
time to ask you. Because you've seen so many people go through
the journey of building in public starting to build in
public. What are the kinds of the common problems that you see
that keep people from getting started right? Because you've
seen a lot of people probably struggling in the beginning.
What are those struggles? What have you found?
Kevon Cheung: The first thing I can think of is, if you are an
expert in something like a researcher or someone just with
a deep knowledge in a topic, these people have a hard time.
Because the thing of lowering your ego, thinking that you
don't know everything and then asking people for their insights
and questions is just out of their world. It's like I know
everything about this topic, why do I need to ask them question?
So whenever I encounter people like this, I'm like, I'm
honestly quite lost how to help them. Because it's not something
you do a course or read a book. And you can resolve that.
Another type is, I notice from our current spreads, like a lot
of people are supposingly showing their work. But when I
read their posts on Instagram, on Twitter, on LinkedIn, I still
don't know what they're working on. I think there's a fear in
that I shouldn't talk about my unfinished product. Like I am
supposed to be the expert. If I talk about something that I'm
working on, it sounds like I don't have credibility or I
don't have the thought leadership so people wouldn't
buy from me. But then when I look at their posts, it's all
like, just thoughts or yeah, just an idea. And anyone can
talk about the same idea. I'm just, yeah, honestly, a little
frustrated. But again, I remind myself, that's why I'm here to
help people because it's not easy. So of course, I give them
a lot of time. Like, I don't like to rush people to have that
kind of mindset shift. Because you don't know their background,
like a lot of people might have like some personal stories that
maybe they used to work in a cooperate and the manager keep
yelling at them for sharing work in progress, right. So it's more
about knowing where they are and help them move a little bit. So
I'm sure you have encountered a lot of different people, as
well. Yeah.
Arvid Kahl: And it boils down really to fear. There's always
the fear of the unknown. That's something that whenever I talk
to people who want my help as well, in just getting started
building an audience or building in public, whatever specific
kind of outreach or marketing it might be, they always say they
struggle with, I have nothing to say, which is never about having
nothing to say. It's always about the things that I want to
say. I'm not sure if I should say them, right. They have a lot
to talk about but they fear that they are misunderstood. They
fear that they are perceived as something less than they see
themselves as that's kind of the ego thing that you talked about.
And then they also they're just afraid of showing work in
progress because work inprogress is perfect. And anything that
isn't perfect is a failure. That's the mental block that I
see a lot in people. Did you have this too? Because I
remember when I started building in public, I went through the
same problems, fear of putting myself out there, fear of
sharing work in progress because I thought, but as a software
engineer, either I have a work in progress that I don't show
with anybody or I have the perfect ultimate finished
product. Right? That's where I came from. Did you have the same
experience along your journey?
Kevon Cheung: Actually not really. Because I, you know, I
talked to so many people and I am a pretty open person. Like
when I first started writing online, I write about lesson
learned failures of my past journey. I have no problem
talking about my mistakes. So I do think that is kind of
something that comes from my growing up my childhood. But
also I work in startup all my career. So you know, we have the
Facebook slogan on our wall, move fast and break things. So
we don't really care about being perfect. So we don't have that
corporate mindset or like academic mindset, like, oh, you
need to like have this in a very nice, perfect condition before
you put it out. People don't understand that this is not
done. So I don't really have that. But also, that's actually
a challenge when it comes to teaching people because I
haven't experienced what they experience. So yeah, it takes a
lot of work to put myself in their shoes and be like, why do
they have that fear? Like, it's a constant research process for
Arvid Kahl: See, that's why I like you so much because the
me as well.
first thing you do is try to be empathetic and put yourself into
the mind of the other person. That's what makes you a great
teacher. And I think that's why you're so perfect for the whole
building in public community because they need somebody to
look at things from their perspective. I'm really happy
you just said this because I feel this is important. It's
important to respect other people's experiences along the
way. And it's hard, like you said, for academics who've been
their whole life, they've been taught you are either an expert
or you're nothing. There's nothing in between, right?
You're an expert or you fail. So giving yourself room to fail,
that is so hard to establish as a new kind of habit. And that's
why you need to look at it from their perspective. It's really
cool. I really like this.
Kevon Cheung: Thank you.
Arvid Kahl: Just want to share my admiration for you for a
second.
Kevon Cheung: Thank you. Well, I think, creator in a sense, it
can mean a lot of different kinds of people, right? I pretty
sure to call myself like a creator educator, because I
really just love to dive into different ways to teach people.
I don't really want to, you know, go viral or become a big
YouTuber or something. I just like to, you know, teach and
help people. So, yeah, thank you for saying that. That means a
lot to me. Yeah.
Arvid Kahl: I appreciate it. And I think building in public is, I
don't know if it's new or not, it certainly is something that
is getting attention, a lot of attention, a lot of steam. And I
think a lot of different people from a lot of different fields
come into it and having somebody who's trying to figure out how
can I place you with your experiences in this bigger
realm? That's just a really cool thing to see.
Kevon Cheung: Yeah, but Arvid? Do you feel like people get a
very different version of building in public than how you
think about it? Because like, I really see that like, people see
people using the hashtag building in public and all they
do is like sharing revenue, MRR charts and they think that's the
version. So sometimes, I'm thinking to myself, like, is it
good to keep using this word building in public? Because
people come with some definitions in their mind. And
it's not easy to change that at that point. I don't know if you
feel the same.
Arvid Kahl: I feel the same way. And I think like it building in
public is kind of showing just the surface, it's showing like
what you do. It doesn't necessarily show exactly how you
do it. And in the term itself, the definition and it certainly
doesn't share the very like the fundamental dynamics of why it
is successful. By building in public could just be you sharing
MRR, like by definition that is building in public but you
sharing MRR pictures of graphs that go up to the right that is
super reductive and it doesn't really help anybody, right? It's
just it's kind of self glorification. And if that's all
you think share a building in public is, then you just see
like the top layer of it. There's so much more to it. And
I think it's kind of our job to fill this definition with more
meaning, right? To make building in public as synonymous with
sharing your journey in front of and among your peers and among
your customers, among your friends, among your prospects,
whoever it might be, right? Among the people that you care
about that you want to serve and empower. It is a reductive
statement. But you know what, like over the last couple of
weeks and months, we've had this discussion around what does it
mean with the term indie hacking as well, like indie hacking is
dead. Indie hacking is the new drop shipping. This whole
conversation is still ongoing. It feels like indie hacking
itself as a term as a thing that people do. It just has matured a
little bit. It used to be somewhat indie, a lot of hacking
and now it's a lot of indie and somewhat hacking. It's just like
indiepreneurship, indie entrepreneurship, indie business
building. The hacking part has gone and all the hacky little
things like the insider jokes to community stuff that has kind of
mellowed out a little bit and moved more into a more
professionalized more templatized thing as well. And I
think building in public is going through the same change,
like building in public has been around for let's just say that
the phrase itself is maybe 2014-15. But the act of it
entrepreneur right along used to be a subreddit in like 2011. And
I think Pat Flynn has been doing this whole Smart Passive Income
thing, which is kind of, you know, like building in public
building in front of your audience since 2008-2009. It's
been around, it's just kind of calcifying into a term that
people want to take and apply, right. It's not something that
you're part of another community, in the same sense
anymore. It's now a marketing tactic, just like indie hacking
is a business building tactic. So in that regard, yeah, it's
definitely not as clear as what we want it to be. But we just
have to defend it. That's kind of what it is. We have to defend
it from becoming too templatized. What do you think
about this, like, do you see the same development?
Kevon Cheung: I just want people to think that building in public
is kind of like the word digital marketing. What does it mean? It
kind of captures a lot of things. And depending who is
teaching you. I just want people to see that instead of thinking
that there's only one answer one way to build in public. No.
Yeah, building in public means like, putting more of your work
out there. Right. And it's very community driven. And a lot of
people question like, why would I build a community? I just want
customers. Yeah, so sometimes it's hard to tell people that
when they're not having people in the, you know, the top party.
But yeah, I think I agree with what you said. I think over
time, I have a feeling that building in public is like
digital marketing. But under that we have to, you know, frame
it differently with our own philosophy. So probably Arvid,
the way you teach building in public is very different from my
building in public. And yeah, people just need to understand
that.
Arvid Kahl: So how do you teach building in public? What are the
core like the tenants, the foundations of what do you think
building in public is good for? How do you do it? And what the
ultimate goal is? What is that for you?
Kevon Cheung: Yeah, so for the longest time, when I first
started teaching, I thought, you know, it's about opening up the
ups and downs of the journey, right. But very soon, I
realized, there are two parts to building in public. One is the
long term, which is what I just talked about. But when you teach
something so long term, it sucks, like people don't see
result and they give up. So I started to think, oh, building
in public actually can be a strategy you use immediately. So
I'm very, I'm diving really deep into this part, which is
building in public is good for you to build products and launch
something, whatever scope like MVP scope in a short time. So
the framework that I am teaching right now is like, you set a
timeframe, 30 days, 60 days and you set the scope, like maybe
not the full course, but maybe just module one, module two. I
don't know if people have that much capacity, but it's
different for different people. So then you build in public
intensively in order to build up the momentum. And not just like,
keep sharing your updates. That's kind of boring. I think
people really get fixated in, you have to talk about what is
done but I teach them to talk about what is coming. So like,
oh, I think about why do people care so much about follower
count? I don't know. So you want to write about that, but you
don't know. Okay, now you ask the community, that's building
in public to me. And the best part is, if you take their
feedback, you improve your product. And then you tell
people, I use your feedback. This is the newer version. That
is building in public because it creates a loop of conversations.
And people see that wow, you really take this seriously.
Guess what? They're more and more invested in you and the
product. So that's how momentum is being built. And this I teach
because it is very achievable. Like you can create a very small
guide in 30 days and you can use all the steps to this. So you
know what? I think I got a lot of inspiration from your
building in public, from your building in public. I still have
this case study of you building the built your following Twitter
course in 42 days and it has become a very big resources in
my program like every time a new student see that and that's
like, wow, this is so clear. Like I see Arvid building in
public and is important to see how people do it right, then
they know how to do it.
Arvid Kahl: Well, thank you. First off for mentioning this
and for having this be a case study. I appreciate that. I also
believe that there there has to be a tangible something in
building in public, not just as one like on a philosophical
level, it's great to think I'm building a legacy. I'm building
this reputation and building this perception as an expert in
the community. I'm always there for years to come, right? Like
you cannot escape success if you do this, obviously, because
you're just so present and others are not. So like
attention gets shifted on to you. But if you then have
nothing to do tomorrow or today, right? If it feels like you're
working towards a goal, like 10 years from now, you give up and
that kind of you talked about accountability earlier, which is
something that you need other people for and you need, like
dynamic engagement for. I really like the idea of turning this
into like short term sprints and have like the long term marathon
that this consists of. I'm trying to kind of conceptualize
it into a model that unites both because we need both, right? We
need what we can do right now. And we need the long term as
well. So maybe, again, thank you for mentioning my product, but
there must be other products out there as well. So and people
that are working on them right now, I wonder, do you have any
kind of really actionable, really pragmatic advice for
people who want to do this right now? They are building
something. They want to build it or they're not building. They're
looking for something to build. Because I feel that is the
better place to start this on. What should they like tangibly
do? Is there something you can like a little prompt or an
exercise you can give them right now to get their feet wet in the
build in public world?
Kevon Cheung: Oh, okay. If there was two different scenarios, if
they have no idea what they should be building is a totally
different approach. Right? I think the build in public, it
becomes a bit vague because you're just doing kind of idea
validation. You'll be asking a lot of open ended questions.
Maybe polling people, that part is actually hard, I would say.
And it's not the fault of building in public. It's just an
entrepreneurship thing. Like, yeah, everyone needs to build up
the muscle to identify opportunities. But let's say if
you have an idea and you kind of have a bit of people around you,
I don't think you need a lot. You just need a small circle.
Even if you have like 50 people that are actively caring and
engaging with you, even if they're not your target
audience. I think that's good. That's why my second project was
called making Twitter friends. Because I cannot stress enough
like, if you don't have an audience, just make friends,
like friends would help you boost your confidence. When
you're not talking to a wall or crickets, you will feel better
and you will just keep going. And guess what? Your friends
will attract the target audience. I think a lot of
people don't understand that. But anyway, I think a few quick
tips I mentioned already, but maybe it's good to summarize it
is you have an idea of what you want to build, scope it down to
30 days or 60 days. So then the finish line is pretty clear.
People love seeing someone start to finish. Like they just want
to see is he going to pass the finish line? Or is he going to
pass out after the finish line? Or how many people are cheering?
Right? People are nosy. So having a small scope helps like
don't try to create a cohort based course in 60 days, that
never works. So scope it down, start date, end date. And then
just yeah, talk about things that hasn't happened yet. Ask
questions. I think that is the best way to start. I'm overly
simplifying this. But yeah.
Arvid Kahl: I think it's a great way to start, like first off
Kevon Cheung: Yeah, and lower the pressure as well. Like, if I
scoping something is usually better than not having it scoped
actually have quite a number of students. When they scope it
obviously. Right? Knowing that I have two months time to do this
allows you to plan for it. And you can share that plan. That
plan itself is a build in public piece of content, right? I'm
down to 30 days, they actually come out to the community and
gonna do this and I'm gonna do that and that and that's a tweet
you can put out there. And then the first day you try the first
say, I am not launching this product. Like through that
thing, it fails horribly. That's a tweet you can put out there
and you try something else that kind of works. That's the next
process, I realize this is not what I want to build. That's
thing you can talk about is kind of looking at things from the
outline perspective and then trying to make it happen and
talking about the things as they happen. That's a pretty solid
good. I think it helps you reflect right? But there also is
start. I would recommend that to people who are starting out
like people who say, I'm not ready to launch after 30 days.
I'm going to extend it to 60 days, that's also okay. And
definitely.
there are people who like, completely pivot to a different
niche. I think, like people put too much pressure on having a
viral product. But actually building in public is not just
getting momentum, but it helps you really understand what
you're building. Are you on track or you're not on track?
And that process is invaluable. Like, don't pay a $2,000 coach
because they cannot give you that, but take action and you
will get that $2,000 value of reflection.
Arvid Kahl: I like that. The feedback cycles that you get
from building in public, they are incredible, like if you do
it right. And the thing is, even if you do it wrong, there's
something super valuable in not getting feedback or getting
weird feedback that is also instructive, right? If you talk
to people about you cool thing that you want to build and all
you get is like shrugs and all you get is nah, I don't need
that or I already have this. Why would I buy yours, right? You
also see that things that you thought may be super exciting.
They may not work and you can pivot early, which is another
benefit of scope. So the one thing that I hear a lot in this
situation when people are starting is, well, how do I talk
to people? And I don't mean like, how do I talk to people,
but as who do I appear in front of people? Because if you're
building in public, you're acting kind of on a stage,
right? You're putting yourself out there, you're projecting
something from your own personality out in the world. In
other words, you're kind of creating a persona, some people
do. And I wonder what your perspective on this is? Do you
need to be a person or a persona or a person that came back from
being a persona to effectively build in public? Like, how do
you think about like authentic self representation in the
communities that you work in and for?
Kevon Cheung: I think you have to be a person. So there are
people who just like, I have a niche, maybe my niche is
parenting and all they talk about is parenting. Honestly, no
one wants to hear from this person. That's just boring. I
have this framework, right? 40, 20, 20, 20 like 40% building in
public because we want eyeballs on our projects. So yeah, just
talking about what you're doing. 20% wisdom balm, you know, those
like short, repostable double wisdom, like an expert, that's
okay. We need that kind of to drive growth. 20% supporting
others, I think a lot of people are doing very well in that. But
it's not just about you. And then the last 20% is
personality, like not talking about everything you'd like but
pick three things you care in your personal life and just like
put that out for me as family. That's why you see me like
talking about parenting a bit because I really care about this
stuff. So that combined with become like a pretty interesting
personality to follow, not just someone who's like always niche,
niche, niche.
Arvid Kahl: Yeah
Kevon Cheung: But also oh, what I want to say about this. Your
question is persona or person.
Arvid Kahl: I can interrupt with a question if you'd like and
edit in as if.
Kevon Cheung: Yeah, that was okay
Arvid Kahl: Let me get some I have a question here. Okay, so
you just talked about like your family and your kids. How much
of the do you share though? Because I feels like that's also
something that you know, can be risky online, like putting your
family out there, your private, your personal life. Like how
much of that do you share? And how much of that do you keep to
yourself? Where do you strike the balance there?
Kevon Cheung: Oh, that that's everyone has a different line,
Arvid Kahl: I think that's a very important distinction,
right? I am someone who my Instagram page is public. So I
Kevon Cheung: One a day, that's a lot. But your volume is high
have no problem like showing my family photos. And but that's
just me. I see other people on Twitter. They also have young
kids. They also love talking about that because they are
living through that. But they would like blur out there kids
right? You're not supposed to and I'm trying to keep my dog
face. I think that's okay because the main point is not
the kid's face, right? The main point is, whatever you're living
through you want to share that moment like oh, parenting is
tough or you realize work life balance doesn't happen anymore.
This type of like realisation or lesson learn, that's the key,
not the kids photo. So I wouldn't share too much because
pictures that I share on Twitter to a minimum or a maximum of one
while I'm very, very sure that by sharing family, I attract
people who cares about family as well. And to me, that's a really
important connection. Business is not just about business. I
feel like if you're a family person, you will attract your
target audience which are the family oriented people in that
audience. If you are like, aggressive, if you are like bro,
if you are very authoritative, you will attract these kind of
people in the target audience. And that's okay. So what I'm
a day because I have so many pictures of my dog. It's crazy.
saying is don't overshare. No one really cares about your
family that much, is really just to establish that touch point of
what you care about to show your personality.
so one a day is okay.
Arvid Kahl: Out of your 40-20-20-20, I think it's still
like solid 90% everything else. But I have so many pictures of
Biene like on my phone, it's crazy. Every time I see the dog,
it's just like, oh, she's so cute. Take a pic. And then I
want to share it because you know, it just loved the people
and pets you surround yourself with. But you're right. They are
your family that you care about the most, that you are the only
person that cares about them as much as you do. That's the whole
point. But it gives you this kind of relatability that
attracts people that are like you.Like it allows you to
surround yourself with people that value the same things as
you do. So it becomes an important ingredient in your
self presentation, right? You're not just all business, which
would attract just all business kind of folks. And you don't
want those. You want people that can relate with you on a certain
level. I think that's very important. My rule is an 80/20
rule, which is funny because it's kind of the same as yours.
It just condenses the first three to 80. 80 is like
everything for me. And then 20% is personalities exactly the
same. It's funny, but I really appreciate the way that you do
it. Honestly, I think you contextualize your journey with
your family life. I think that's very important. Because if I
would only see your building in public stuff, I couldn't trust
you. As much as you're great at what you're doing, I need to
know there's a real person standing behind all of these
things, right? I need to know the Kevon that you are not just
the Kevon that is super professional and does all these
wonderful things. I need to know the dad, I need to know the
friend and the peer that I want to build a true and meaningful
relationship with. And I couldn't do this if you didn't
share all these things, these personal things.
Kevon Cheung: Yeah, that's why I really don't enjoy when people
just throw out content, like realisation or thoughts because
after reading like 10 times, I still don't know who they are.
How can they get followers or even friends when people don't
really see through those texts? Yeah
Arvid Kahl: Yeah, that's what I always tell people that asked me
to look at their Twitter profile and tell them what they could
do. Like when I look at it and I don't see what they promised me
for a future relationship for an actual meaningful 2, 5, 10 years
Twitter friendship, when I don't see that, probably not gonna
follow them. Because that's what I want to know at that point,
right. And I think you do this well. I love your Twitter
presence, honestly, your whole brand presence with the broccoli
and everything. We didn't even get to talk about this. This is
so distinct. And it's so you that I feel this is a guy that I
want to build a long term Twitter relationship with, as a
friend, as a peer, as a teacher, as a student on all these levels
because he's so approachable, you make it very easy. And I
Arvid Kahl: That is a great little masterclass right here. I
think that
Kevon Cheung: Thank you. I try my best. I actually have one tip
for people who are like, kind of struggling, like, I love my
family. But now you're telling me you cannot talk so much on
really appreciate this like use those platforms for the
Twitter about your family. I want to give a tip to these
people. I put more of my family life on Instagram, like on
Instagram, I don't build in public. I post a picture once in
expectations that your audience has on that platform. Right?
a while about me working on some stuff, but that's my personal
life. So on Twitter, I keep it very light. So once in a while.
So this way, you know, I'm very professional on my Twitter
Instagram people, they want to see pictures of your life.
presence. And I would mention my Instagram account in my
newsletter, like, usually I open it with a personal story and
then I would link it to Instagram. And what I found out
Twitter people want you to be a professional, albeit still human
is that this is a good way to balance professional life and
personal life as a creator. The people who don't mind your baby
photos, they would opt in on Instagram. And you know, they
person, right? They want it like different people want different
would really like feel a strong connection with me. But most
people, they don't care about that. They will stay on
newsletter and Twitter and that's kind of brilliant. Like I
things. Wow. Newsletter, Instagram, Twitter, you got it
love this spread. So you don't really have to talk about
everything on every platform. You can actually have different
purposes on different social media accounts.
all. So if people want to follow you, on how many platforms do
they need to sign up? Or which platforms do you want people to
go to follow you on your journey?
Kevon Cheung: Mostly Twitter. Yeah. Because that's where the
professional life happens. But also, you know, people say, oh,
I forgot what I want to say. There's something I want to say.
Arvid Kahl: Don't worry. I'm just
Kevon Cheung: Oh, I know. And also, like, a lot of people talk
about like, bringing people from platform to platform, like, you
know, on Twitter, we want to drive people to YouTube. And
then on YouTube, we want to drive people to Instagram. I
don't believe in that, you know, we have our own interests and
you don't have to force people to follow you everywhere. Yeah,
going back to my point, like, just be very intentional about
the usage. Yes
Arvid Kahl: Well, I'll put all those links to all your profiles
and your newsletter and your website in the show notes
anyway, so people can pick, right? People can pick the right
platform to follow you on.
Kevon Cheung: Do you have enough space?
Arvid Kahl: I have enough space, send me a list, I'll make it
happen. But you know, like Twitter is definitely the place
where I consume most of your work. And I still see you as a
full human being there. So it's a pretty good platform to choose
to interact with you. And I will keep interacting with you over
how many ever years may come. It's been an absolute pleasure
following your journey for the last couple of years. And I see
you you're just enjoying doing this work so much. So I can't
wait for the next years and see what's going to come there.
Thank you so much for being on the show today and sharing your
build in public insight and all of that with me. That was
really, really wonderful. Thank you so much, Kevon.
Kevon Cheung: Thank you, Arvid for having me, you know, coming
in here. This is unscripted. Right? Just a chat between two
friends. It's kind of scary, to be honest.
Arvid Kahl: It sure is.
Kevon Cheung: But you make it easy. We have a good chat, we
talked about philosophy and you know, believes that I love it.
Thank you for having me.
Arvid Kahl: I appreciate that. Thank you so much.
And that's it for today. I will now briefly thank my sponsor,
acquire.com. Imagine this, you're a founder who's built a
really solid SaaS product, you acquired all those customers,
and everything is generating really consistent monthly
recurring revenue. That's the dream of every SaaS founder,
right? The problem is, you're not growing for whatever reason,
maybe it's lack of skill or lack of focus or play in lack of
interest, you don't know. You just feel stuck in your business
with your business. What should you do? Well, the story that I
would like to hear is that you buckled down, you reignited the
fire and you started working on the business, not just in the
business and all those things you did, like audience building
and marketing and sales and outreach. They really helped you
to go down this road, six months down the road, making all that
money. You tripled your revenue and you have this hyper
successful business. That is the dream. The reality,
unfortunately, is not as simple as this. And the situation that
you might find yourself in is looking different for every
single founder who's facing this crossroad. This problem is
common, but it looks different every time. But what doesn't
look different every time is the story that here just ends up
being one of inaction and stagnation. Because the business
becomes less and less valuable over time and then eventually
completely worthless if you don't do anything. So if you
find yourself here, already at this point or you think your
story is likely headed down a similar road, I would consider a
third option and that is selling your business on acquire.com.
Because you capitalizing on the value of your time today is a
pretty smart move. It's certainly better than not doing
anything. And acquire.com is free to list. They've helped
hundreds of founders already, just go check it out at
try.acquire.com/arvid, it's me and see for yourself if this is
the right option for you, your business at this time. You might
just want to wait a bit and see if it works out half a year from
now or a year from now. Just check it out. It's always good
to be in the know.
Thank you for listening to the Bootstrapped Founder today. I
really appreciate that. You can find me on Twitter @arvidkahl.
And you'll find my books and my Twitter course there too. If you
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really appreciate it. Thank you so much for listening. Have a
wonderful day and bye bye.