Building in Public as an Immigrant Founder: Why Visibility Is a Strategy, Not Just a Habit
How sharing the real journey - not the highlight reel - became one of the most important things I do as a founder
When I wrote my first vulnerable post on LinkedIn - about the $140,000 in debt I’d accumulated and why I was building Toya to solve my own problem - I expected crickets or maybe a few pity reactions. Instead, 50,000 people read it. My phone didn’t stop buzzing for two days.
That moment changed how I think about building in public. It’s not a marketing tactic. It’s the act of making the invisible visible - the struggle, the uncertainty, the real choices behind the polished product.
Why immigrants in particular benefit from building in public
As an immigrant founder, you start with a smaller network, less cultural capital, and fewer warm introductions than someone who grew up in the country where you’re building. Building in public is one of the most effective ways to close that gap. It also offsets some of the quieter weight of building while immigrant — the visa math and the existential context-switching nobody else in the room is running.
Your immigrant story is not a liability in the market. For the right audience, it is a differentiator. Own it.
What building in public actually looks like in practice
Share the decisions, not just the outcomes
The most engaging content I’ve written isn’t about wins. It’s about decisions. Why I chose to build Toya in a specific direction. Why I turned down an acquisition conversation. What I decided to stop doing to focus.
Be specific, not vague
“I’m building something exciting in fintech” gets ignored. “I’m building a debt payoff tool because I had $140k in debt and couldn’t find anything that helped me” gets engagement. Specificity creates relatability.
What it has actually created for me
- 8,000+ LinkedIn followers who have become a genuine community, not just a vanity metric
- Inbound advisory and mentorship requests that I could never have generated through traditional networking
- Investor conversations that started with “I’ve been following your journey” - the warm path, not the cold email
- Peer connections with other immigrant founders who felt seen by what I shared
- A clearer sense of my own thinking - writing publicly forces a level of clarity that private journaling doesn’t
If you’re a founder trying to figure out how to build a presence that actually converts to customers and opportunities - not just followers - I do sessions on exactly this.
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