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5 Comments

Assume You're Going to Win

Read an awesome blog post from swyx about meta-creators, which really got me thinking.

With the proliferation of tech twitter, comes a whole host of distractions that engineer/builder/founder types easily get trapped by. You could call them distractions, or you might call them "games".

One of the most dangerous seems to be the "audience-building" game.

The advice goes - build an audience, so that you can leverage it for career opportunities, or as distribution for your next product/project/company.

And it works!

Twitter followers and social proof builds true credibility. It can propel you into industries or careers that are otherwise difficult to enter. There are countless examples of this.

The danger is when you don't have a clear vision what you're going to leverage the audience for. It's easy to then just optimize for what will engage audiences and increase your following.

It's one of those "do x so that you can eventually do y" scenarios, where x = "build an audience" and y is relatively abstract. And whenever I can squarely something into this type of scenario, I immediately think, "why can't I just do y now??".

Swyx's last line is a great way to cut through the bullshit games that you don't really want to play

Assume you will be successful at whatever game you play. Are you playing a game you want to win?

(This was a blog post at my site https://www.jonathancai.com/assume-youre-going-to-win/, check it out!)

  1. 5

    After 1 year building an audience what I learned is that it is no different from when I started as a Software Engineer:

    Do not expect quick results, but the progress will show if you are committed every day.

    The most successful people I've seen have 8+ years in content creation. I'm reshuffling my audience-building game strategy. Now, I have low expectations for the first 5 years, optimizing for learning not gains.

  2. 2

    Hey Jonathan, that post really made me think as I currently started building an audience on Twitter as well. And I also not have a plan for “Y” (yet). A kind of good excuse is that audience building naturally takes a lot of time (if you are not the “viral guy”) so you have a lot of time meeting new people, get interesting ideas and plan for “Y”. What do you think?

    1. 1

      Yeah, Twitter is amazing for exploring new ideas and meeting people. But again, I try to tell myself, never lose sight of the "Y", and don't get obsessed by "X". It is just means to an end.

  3. 1

    Talking about danger - don't use "audience building" first as a procrastination method to actually build something.

  4. 1

    Such a great point made here Jonathan. Assuming that the 'win' is guaranteed, it makes it easier to trust the process and enjoy the journey.

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