Building in public, creativity & micro thoughts

Building In Public

"In life, we must choose our regrets.” - Christopher Hitchens

I have never heard a founder say that they built an audience and regretted it.

The only regret is that they didn’t start sooner.

Look at this founder who posted on Reddit: he sold his company for 8 figures and hasn’t been able to get a job for the last 2 years.

He stayed on the sidelines on LinkedIn while building his company, letting his employees take the credit.

But now he can’t get hired and doesn’t have an audience to fall back on.

How To Build In Public

With the rise in personal brands, this is one of the biggest opportunities right now.

Why does this work? People buy into a story and narrative. They want to follow people.

This is the reason why Brian Chesky has more followers than the Airbnb account and runs all the announcements through his personal page.

Building in public appeals to a variety of groups- your peers, customers and investors.

So here’s the best type of content you can start sharing:

1. Your vision

2. Life lessons

3. Customer wins

4. Growth tactics

5. Fundraising tips

6. Product updates

7. Behind-the-scenes experiments

Your greatest asset isn't what you build - it's who knows you built it.

If you’re strapped for time and need some help building your personal brand, then let’s talk.

How to get creative: change your environment

Creativity is a finite output. Eventually, you run out of juice.

As we’re taught in the productivity world, when this happens- it’s time to chug some more coffee and push through.

Wrong.

In my experience that makes the problem 1000 times worse.

Instead: change your inputs.

New inputs create:

• New ideas

• New perspectives

• New sources of energy

Sure, creativity requires discipline and consistency, but baked into that routine needs to be time to go and recharge in new surroundings.

The best way I’ve found to do this is through changing environments.

That could be anything like:

• Walking a different route

• Working from a new cafe

• A night away in a hotel (my favorite)

The trick is to plan ahead with changes and new routines before you burn out and hit a creativity rut. Prevention is better than cure.

Micro Thoughts

Here are some of my favorite quotes and thoughts I’ve collected this week:

1. What’s upstream of the goals I’m trying to achieve? Example: Eating well and working out is upstream of getting in shape. Focus more upstream.

2. You can’t spreadsheet your way there: sure spreadsheets have their place for tracking important metrics. But some of the most important metrics aren’t visible and require bold bets.

3. Break from focus, not distraction: Distraction is the biggest threat to our goals and dreams. Pulling the plug and creating laser focus seems to be the only antidote.

Until next week

Tom ✌️