Build in Public Marketing

Every day on Twitter, another founder shares their MRR, CAC, churn rates, and fundraising journey with thousands of followers.

What was once unthinkable has become a powerful growth strategy. Founders like Arvid Kahl and Peter Levels have built loyal followings and successful businesses by turning transparency into their most effective marketing channel.

But venture capital has remained opaque.

A new generation of fund managers is bringing the "build in public" playbook to VC, turning transparency from a liability into their greatest marketing asset.

The Rise of Build-in-Public for Startups

The build-in-public movement gained momentum when founders discovered that sharing their journey – complete with metrics, failures, and learnings – created content that led to organic user acquisition and continuous feedback for product development.

I’m sure you’ve seen Buffer who took this approach to the extreme, publishing their revenue dashboards, salary formulas, and even equity splits. This became their competitive advantage benefitting everything from hiring to user acquisition.

Why VCs Have Remained in the Dark

While startups embraced transparency, traditional wisdom in VC holds that you should keep funding private, and never disclose deal or decision making info.

The result is that Founders waste time pursuing funds that are wrong for them.

VCs review thousands of pitches that don't fit their thesis.

And the entire ecosystem operates on relationships rather than merit.

A new wave of fund managers is challenging these norms, bringing build-in-public principles to venture capital:

1. Nichole Wischoff, Wischoff Ventures

Nichole regularly shares her deal flow tracker on Twitter, showing exactly how many companies move through each stage of her pipeline:

These tweets average 30,000+ views and have established her as a straight-shooting investor who respects founders' time.

2. Stefano Bernardi, Unruly Capital

Unruly recently launched a public dashboard displaying metrics most VCs guard zealously:

• Amount raised and deployable (minus fees)

• Amount deployed and remaining

• Check sizes, valuations, and ownership percentages

• Category distribution and co-investor relationships

• MOIC (for non-active funds) and write-offs

Stefano writes - "This is all usually thought of as confidential data, but we don't think it makes that much sense to keep it confidential. Most other firms already know most of this about us."

3. Francesco Perticarari, Silicon Roundabout Ventures

I’ve loved following Francesco’s "Building in Public" Substack and he has even shared videos of LPs reviewing his pitch deck live on his blog and interviews his LPs about topics such as what do they expect to see from LP updates.

He sends nearly identical updates to both LPs and public subscribers, including:

• Portfolio performance highlights

• New investments and follow-ons

• Market insights and strategy shifts

• Community and ecosystem updates

4. Ryan Hoover, Weekend Fund

Weekend Fund in 2021 documented their community fundraise in detail, sharing:

• Fundraising timeline and target allocation

• LP selection criteria and application process

• Conversion metrics from applications to commitments

• Operational processes for managing hundreds of LPs

This actually resulted in over 1,000 accredited investors applying to invest, converting in $13M+ in investment raised – far exceeding their allocation! (note: they were set up as a 506© fund)

Why Building in Public Works for VCs

The immediate reaction from traditional VCs is often skepticism… Won't transparency harm your competitive advantage? But all of the data suggests otherwise.

1. Fills the top of the funnel

Turner Novak of Banana Capital (self-proclaimed "Chief Meme Officer") explained memes and a lot of content are a good way to fill up the pipeline and maybe meet someone. More meetings usually = more closes.

Mac Conwell of RareBreed Ventures conducted over 1,100 meetings in his first 90 days = $3 million in commitments. For Noramay Cadena of Supply Change Capital, it was 400 meetings yielding 19 investors and $2.1 million.

2. Creates self-selection

By showing how they operate, transparent VCs attract founders who value their specific approach and repel those who don't – saving time for both sides.

Founders' time is scarce, and they are looking to access enough data to understand three things: Are you 'good' investors; Are you the right investors for them; and What are the chances you will invest in their company.

This self-selection dramatically improves the quality of inbound interest.

3. Builds Trust

Openness breeds trust. By sharing the good and bad – failed investments, thesis evolutions, operational challenges – it build deeper connections with LPs.

Sahil Lavingia, who publicly raised his rolling fund on AngelList was one of the first person to fundraise publicly. The more he put out there the more people felt comfortable with the large risk to invest in the fund… He went on to raise $5M from 8,962 investors (note: via angellist they were set up as a 506© fund)

4. It forces discipline and accountability

When you know your decisions will be public, you make better ones.

Lolita Taub of Ganas Ventures - a Latina-led VC - chose to raise in public because they believed that the money we raise and use to invest in our community's founders will be most effective if it comes from firms and individuals who represent our population of underestimated and underrepresented founders and allies.

How To Be More Public

Let's be real – this approach won't work for everyone. Some readers of this work for funds on Fund III or IV with institutional LPs who expect traditional discretion, going full transparency overnight might cause a mutiny.

But there's a spectrum of options that can work for funds at any stage:

1. Share your thought process, not necessarily the numbers

This is the lowest-hanging fruit. Instead of just announcing investments, talk about why you made them e.g. case studies about why specific companies fit your strategy or share decision-making frameworks that guide your choices

Example: Bessemer Venture Partners publishes their investment memos for successful companies after they go public. While this is retrospective, it builds trust by showing their actual decision-making process.

2. Show your work, even when it's messy

I do some work with an athlete's family office, and our number one challenge is that by needing to be stealth, we have to work significantly harder to surface opportunities as we only receive inbound from our direct networks.

You can solve this by showing founders what you're interested in:

• Share what industries you're researching this quarter

• Post questions you're exploring about emerging technologies

• Document meetings and events you're attending (without specifics)

3. Bring your community behind the scenes (selectively)

There's a huge opportunity for anyone starting a new fund to document absolutely everything – from crafting the pitch deck to writing the memo, networking strategies, LP call preparation, etc.

This creates massive differentiation and establishes expertise through transparency:

• Start a weekly newsletter documenting your fund journey

• Create a YouTube series showing your day-to-day process

• Host monthly webinars answering questions about VC

For established funds, you can do a lighter version by hosting AMAs, creating founder forums, or sharing resources that help founders succeed whether they take your money or not.

My Take - The Wide-Open Goal

As someone who works with both traditional and emerging managers, I've seen how building in public creates advantages that traditional VCs struggle to match.

I believe there's a massive open goal right now for anyone starting a fund to go all-in on documenting everything. The existing playbook for first-time managers (cold outreach to LPs, endless networking) is brutal and inefficient.

Building in public is a completely different approach to building a fund that can dramatically reduce the time to first close.

The ideal candidate is likely someone starting Fund I who doesn't have institutional LP relationships to protect yet. By showing every step of the journey – the wins, the rejections, the progress – you'll not only build an audience but demonstrate the persistence and thoughtfulness that LPs look for in managers.

This transparency compound grows over time. Each piece of content builds on the last, creating a body of work that demonstrates your expertise far more effectively than the majority of other content.

But for those managing later funds, even selective transparency can create significant advantages. Start with what your LPs are comfortable with and expand gradually as the benefits become clear.

Laurie, Refinery Media