Do you think founders should share failures in real-time?
I go back and forth on this a lot.
As someone working on branding myself online as I build, I’ve shared some missteps as they happened: marketing experiments that went nowhere, outreach that genuinely just flopped and weirdly, those posts got way more engagement than when I only shared “wins.”
It almost felt like people related more when things weren’t polished. At the same time, there’s always that voice in your head: am I making us look lost? Am I branding the company as failure-prone instead of ambitious? I’ve seen both sides: the honesty building trust, but also the silence making the brand look cleaner.
I'm curious where you land on this.
Do you think showing the messy middle helps the long-term, or does it blur the line between transparency and just oversharing?
Replies
You know what I respect?.....When someone talks about there setbacks, but they always connect it back to getting smarter. Like, This outreach sucked, but now I know our audience way better.
And thats make a huge difference between “Everything’s falling apart” and “Here’s what didn’t work and why.”
IXORD
@hammad_khan007 I support you. If a person managed to make some successful step out of a mistake, then that's really cool.
@ixord yeah 100%
@hammad_khan007 Yeah, 100% agree, framing it as learning makes the whole difference. It keeps the story moving forward instead of sounding like you’re stuck.
I’ve thought about this a lot too and while I admire the idea of “building in public,” I think it really depends on the type of project.
For example, I enjoy following projects that have both a social media presence and an editorial side like FreeslotsHUB. Sure, they have Twitter and Instagram, but what I found genuinely valuable was reading the interview with their CEO. It wasn’t just fluff – it gave real insight into how the project started, what inspired it, what challenges they faced, and what values drive the team.
To me, that’s one of the best forms of PR. People love stories – how the founder thinks, what keeps them going, what mistakes they’ve made. You don’t need to turn every post into a confessional, but a well-structured founder interview adds both authenticity and authority.
(And let’s be honest… there’s a reason founder interviews are everywhere on YouTube – we just can’t get enough of them 😄)
So yes, transparency matters. But instead of oversharing in the moment, packaging those lessons into thoughtful content especially from founders might be the sweet spot.