# An audience takes longer to build than a product
Understanding · principle · https://build-here.africa/book/chapters/04-11-an-audience-takes-longer-to-build-than-a-product.html

## The reflex

Launch is coming. The team realises it does not know how to reach the first people concerned.

## The builder's reflex

Start talking to the people concerned the day you start building. Share what you are doing while you do it.

## Why

A product gets built in weeks. A group's trust takes months. If you start looking for them on launch day, you launch to an empty room.

Sharing while you build costs little and pays twice. You find your first users, and they correct what you are building. Someone shows another way of solving the problem, asks about access, agrees to a trial. You learn all of that before you have finished.

Publishing has never been easier: a message, a note, a short video, a write-up of what you tried this week. Say honestly what works and what does not work yet. That is exactly what people find interesting.

The channel depends on the people: a professional network, a messaging group, a community group, the team next door, a partner. For an internal tool, the audience is the team that will use it. The principle does not change: start before you need it.

## Try this

This week, share what you are building with five people it concerns, through the channel they already use. Say what you want to learn and what you can already show.

Do it again the following week. After a month, look at who answers, who tried it, and what changed in what you are building.

## To discuss

Who should know, before launch, that we are building this?