You can't control going viral but you can control being prolific.
In today’s edition, I decided to reflect on my journey of building an audience online through creating content. And how it changed my life.
This interview was meant for my upcoming profile/ feature on Story Alley but I’m sharing a raw version of this here first.
If you met me in Oct 2018 at Kula Coffee Co, one of my frequent coffee shops in Atlanta, you’d have thought I was going nowhere. I was filled with despair and hopelessness given the fact that I just made the difficult decision to shut down my SaaS startup ClosingPage. I made a lot of rookie mistakes which I documented here.
At the time, I had 414 followers on Twitter, no podcast, no email newsletters and virtually zero network both in Atlanta and globally. I was in a rough patch and the future looked bleak. But I took notice of one mega error I made in the previous chapter which I vowed I’d never repeat again. What was it?
That I didn’t focus on building an audience/network of other like-minded founders or peers in my niche. I was being on the sidelines as just a ‘consumer’ of other people’s content and building my startup in my own little corner quietly.
Why did I decide to build an audience? How I did it?
You can’t control startup failures and business outcomes but you can however control whether you decide to be a proactive creator or a passive consumer. I was tired of being a spectator in the peanut gallery. I wanted to become a creator and get into the arena. This was the choice that was in front of me in Oct 2018.
I saw the likes of Ben Tossell, Bram Kanstein, Pieter Levels etc. create content on Twitter and document their journey publicly no matter what they were building.
So I vowed to never be without a network/audience advantage ever. And I knew that if I created content and gave value to people, good things will happen. So I began my journey in the winter of 2018.
Some key wins since then:
Grew Twitter from 414 followers to 37,700+
Grew newsletter from 0 to 7100+ subscribers
Grew podcast to 1000s of listeners and landed interviews with iconic guests like Gary Vee, Sahil Lavingia, Alexis Ohanian, Kat Cole etc.
But really what I am proud of?
30,400+ tweets created
44 episodes of the podcast published
11 editions of the newsletter shipped (in the last 11 weeks)
And more importantly, I did all this on the side while navigating 2 leadership roles at fast-growing startups (On Deck and Day One) and later becoming a dad. I’m proud of my determination.
What impact (e.g. opportunities, contacts, etc. that have come your way) has audience building had on me?
Having an audience has either directly or indirectly led to the below key wins in my career:
My two high-profile startup leadership roles both came from building in public and putting out “bat signals” boldly and showing how I can help startups (see the below tweets)
Much of my personal brand’s credibility came from pitching my podcast in public and recruiting iconic guests and business leaders in public (like Gary Vee and Alexis Ohanian and many more, see below)
In almost all occasions, I have been pro-active and been able to put myself “out there” without giving into the fears of public rejection or embarrassment. That skill alone helped me immensely over the years.
Finally, outside of credibility and jobs, I’ve been able to build a world-class network filled with top investors, founders and ambitious creators because of my content output and consistency. I’ve interviewed so many of them on my podcast but there are 100x more people who I built relationships on private DMs, Zooms and emails etc.
Now, let’s get in the weeds. What were the tactics that helped me grow the most? Why?
Here are the 5 tactics/secrets that helped me a lot:
I discovered a secret which came as a surprise to me. That is creating content is a 3 dimensional game. Let’s say on X-axis, you’ve got the polish of your content. Y-axis is about value to people. Z-axis is about iterations. A lot of people are obsessed about X-axis alone and do abysmally poor in Y and Z axes. They are so worried about fine-tuning and optimizing their content to make it ‘look perfect’ while forgetting that what matters a lot more is Y-axis (value to people). I’ve learned this quickly and stopped worrying about how ‘well refined’ my work is. I obsess over value and iterations 10x more than an average creator I think. Which means naturally, I accrue more goodwill and social capital because my content is way more consistent and helpful… despite it’s lack of perfection. Aim to be prolific, not perfect.
The 2nd secret of my growth is that I am very disciplined when it comes to sticking with a niche. So many beginners constantly toggle between niches because they haven’t found the right niche and they are trying to mimic or copy other viral content. I don’t give a sh*t about virality. I know it will come and go as it pleases so I’d rather not worry. In stead, I focus more on being insanely focussed on evangelizing my worldview (which is ‘building in public’). Your niche doesn’t have to be too complicated, just pick a worldview or a strong opinion and that can be a niche too. For ex: If you believe async work is the future, just turn that into a niche and create a boat load of content for 2 years and you’ll reap insane rewards.
The 3rd secret is that I barely compare my journey and the current chapter to anyone else’s. I did this for a while and it drained me and I almost quit because I thought I wasn’t growing fast enough. I finally overcame this limiting belief and became focussed on playing my game my way. I am very ambitious yet at the same time very content with my path so far. I want to focus on decades, not days. This is the mantra I repeat to myself in my head and it frees my brain from worry and helps me create a lot of content across Twitter, Podcast or Youtube etc.
The 4th secret is that I study other great content creators who’re building huge audiences only to understand their techniques and tactics. For ex: Justin Welsh has some great tactics so I like to study his content. It’s important to learn from others and be inspired. However, I caution that you should focus on being yourself and using your own authentic voice or style so people get to know you better.
The 5th secret is that I approach content creation with a combination of intensity and joy. Yes, I try to be prolific but I do it in a state of flow. Someone recently gave me a wonderful compliment that I reminded him of an athlete with a strong endurance. I am grateful for the kind words because I actually do view myself as gritty. I put a lot of effort into becoming someone who’s prolific and whose output is ridiculously high. But I do it with joy. I like to take a lot of shots on the goal (create content) and have fun doing it.. and if only a small sliver of that succeeds, that’s enough for me.
What is one piece of advice I wish someone gave me in the beginning of my audience building journey?
You might be able to guess this by now. Be prolific.
You can’t control virality. You can’t control the outcomes, follower counts, serendipitous opportunities, revenue figures etc. But you can control whether you show up to your audience and add value. Being prolific is the only thing you can control and if you can be world-class at it, the rest will all fall in place.
Originally published on KP's Column · Nov 29, 2022