Reveal it when it’s finished. A half-built house invites a lot of free advice from people who’ve never built anything.

An unfinished thing looks like an invitation for input, and most of the input arrives from people with no experience and no stake. You end up defending choices you have not finished making, and some of that feedback will change the thing for the worse before it had a chance to work. Finished work gets judged on whether it works. Unfinished work gets judged against whatever somebody imagined.

Keep the next project off the group chat until it does something. Show it to one person whose opinion you actually want, and be specific about what you are asking. Everyone else can see it when it stands up on its own.