If you try to build an audience on social media, you'll quickly learn that attention is an incredibly scarce resource. People are busy. They won't even look your way unless you can offer them something unique. And yet, we founders have a hard time focusing our own attention. Why do we keep reading through each … Continue reading On Saying No
Category: Mental Health
Parasocial Relationships: Imaginary Friends of the Social Network Age
There are a lot of one-sided relationships on social media. They have many names: superfans, otakus, and stans. When you intimately know the personality, likes, dislikes, and the entire personal history of a person you've never met and never had any one-on-one interaction with, you're likely in a parasocial relationship. These are the imaginary friends … Continue reading Parasocial Relationships: Imaginary Friends of the Social Network Age
You Don’t Need to be an Extrovert to Build in Public — an Introvert’s Perspective
One of the major reasons people don’t start building in public is that they don’t want to stand in the proverbial spotlight. They don’t want to be exposed. Building in public is by definition a public act, and if you’re anything like me, you prefer keeping a low profile. At least, I usually do. But … Continue reading You Don’t Need to be an Extrovert to Build in Public — an Introvert’s Perspective
Seven Kinds of Entrepreneurial Debt
When I need to relax, I paint little miniatures. It’s a hobby I have had since I was a teenager, and once a nerd, always a nerd. But as an adult nerd with disposable income and dedicated “hobby time,” I am part of a community, and I ran into a YouTube video of a fellow … Continue reading Seven Kinds of Entrepreneurial Debt
What Founders Can Learn from Professional WoW Gamers
If you want to see tenacity at work, watch professional gamers racing to be the first to kill the latest dungeon boss in World of Warcraft. Every time Activision Blizzard releases new dungeon content, the world's best guilds join the "Race to World First." They grind through days, sometimes weeks, of trying to overcome the … Continue reading What Founders Can Learn from Professional WoW Gamers
Building in Public and Negativity
I was invited to a Twitter space about audience-building this week, and we talked about the not-so-fun side of building in public: dealing with negativity. That's something a lot of people are scared of. When we talk about negativity on Twitter, we often think about flamewars and shitstorms. That's the external kind of negative thinking; … Continue reading Building in Public and Negativity
Being Imperfect in Public
When I launched my Twitter course Find your Following earlier this week, I realized that my launch Tweet had a typo less than a minute after posting it. For a supposedly pristine piece of marketing that highlights my professional approach to using Twitter, that wouldn't really work. But it did. Before I had the opportunity … Continue reading Being Imperfect in Public
The Performative Nature of Building in Public: A View From the Inside
When you build in public, you're performing. You can call it what you want: sharing your authentic journey, teaching from the driver's seat — when you type your updates into that Twitter prompt, you are thinking about how you can "most authentically show something" to your audience. And that is a performance. A performance that … Continue reading The Performative Nature of Building in Public: A View From the Inside
Fear-Setting
While I was working on answering questions for my upcoming Twitter audience-building course, I ran into this one: "What if it doesn't work?" While my immediate thoughts went to the random nature of eventual success and how only consistency will pave the way there, I soon arrived at a problem that lies much deeper than … Continue reading Fear-Setting
Burnout
Every week, I see more people talking about burning out. It seems to be hitting anyone: from seasoned entrepreneurs with glowing track records to people scrapping their side projects because they can't even handle their day job anymore: people are struggling. I feel it too. Being cooped up for years isn't cool, not even for … Continue reading Burnout
