Why We Build in Public

At Amazon, we had a practice called the PRFAQ.  In this document, you’d write your ideal hypothetical press release that would be published upon feature completion, as well as the frequently asked questions that you anticipate customers and internal stakeholders might have about the feature.  It was the ultimate “working backwards” document - starting with the end goal of the value you’d be delivering to customers, and then determining how you’d get there.

When we were working on our 2026 roadmap for Clearly AI last week, Joe and I listed out a laundry list of big and small features missing from our product.  We shared them with the dev team and … crickets.  Our newest staff engineer, a previous founder who has scaled AI products to millions of users, raised the elephant in the room.  “Ok, so let’s say we build all of these things.  What will the user experience actually be by the end of the year? What is the end product from Clearly AI in December 2026?”

At that moment we knew we had to go back to our Amazon training.  We had been in the weeds for too long, focusing on point fixes and solutions for customer problems and gaps in the product.  Over the next week, we really went back to the beginning.  Why did we found this company? What are the ultimate goals we want to accomplish? What is a meaningful step forward we can hope to achieve in 2026? 

Build In Public

This is an exciting new product category. We are all discovering what this product looks like together. In our eyes, we are builders, on your team, on this journey with you. 

Part of our DNA as a company is that we went through the YCombinator program, where the mantra is “launch early, launch often.” YCombinator encourages building in public because: 

1. Startup success is execution. There’s no point in keeping your ideas a secret. Especially in the age of AI, ideas are cheap, but executing them well is still difficult.  Don’t worry about competitors, just keep your head down and deliver magic for your customers.
2. You never know which launch or which post will resonate with someone.  As a startup, we are always looking for new connections: customers, employees, channel partners.  Sharing ideas, plans, new features, etc. publicly is also a source of accountability. If we go silent, something is wrong.
3. When you build in public, you don’t “Sell Ahead.” What we show you, is what we have. We’ve heard our customers - they’re tired of vendors promising something that doesn’t yet exist. Our goal is to build a high-trust long-term relationship, so we’re open and honest about what is in prod and what is still under development.

Sharing our Vision

For all of those reasons and more, we’ll be sharing our vision, roadmap, and goals over the next few weeks. We’re already beginning to socialize ideas and prototypes with current customers, and are excited to hear feedback. 

Our company tagline is “built by security engineers for security engineers” for a reason.  We care so deeply about our customers.  I quit my job as a security & privacy engineer because I wanted to make my job, and everyone else’s, better.  If you feel the same way, reach out.  We’d truly love to hear from you.