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David Perell Profile picture
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20 Oct, 4 tweets, 2 min read
Here’s my business model.

I support myself in two ways: online courses in the short term and investing in the long term.

When people find me online, I encourage them to sign up for my email list where I share links to Twitter, YouTube videos, podcasts, and long-form essays.
Everything is driven by my Audience-First Products thesis.

It has three steps: (1) share ideas consistently, (2) grow an audience, and (3) either invest in the audience or build products for them. The flywheel funds my long-form essays — my true passion.

If you're interested in building something like this for yourself, sign up for my 7-day email course.

In it, I share the basics of writing online which is the best place to begin.

ageofleverage.com/course
I'm inspired by Walt Disney's original business model.

At some point, I asked myself: "How can I translate that into a flywheel for myself?"

Like Disney, it all starts with the audience. The possibilities open up once you've built relationships at scale. So that's my plan.

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More from @david_perell

David Perell Profile picture
11 Oct
You should know about Brunello Cucinelli.

He's the billionaire founder of a $450 million fashion brand. His company is valued at more than €1.6 billion, and it's fueled by his radical approach to business.

This thread is a collection of the best things I've learned from him.
1. He donates 20 percent of profits to charity, through his foundation.

The foundation's mission is “to support any initiative enhancing knowledge, protecting the land and its monuments, highlighting the value of tradition, promoting spiritual and daily values of mankind.”
2. He sets strict working times.

His team starts the day at 8am and have a hard stop at 5:30pm, after which work is forbidden.

He says: “Human beings are much more creative in the morning after a good rest and after devoting time to themselves and their families."
Read 18 tweets
David Perell Profile picture
5 Oct
Here's a fascinating answer to "Is Peter Thiel Very Smart?" from @RyanHoliday.

I love this line: “The things that I think I’m right about other people are in some sense not even wrong about, because they’re not thinking about them.”

Here are my favorite quotes.
This is a beautiful way to think about thinking.

“Peter is of two minds on everything. If you were able to open his skull, you would see a number of Mexican standoffs between powerful antagonistic ideas you wouldn’t think could be safely housed in the same brain.”
"Thiel is extremely well-read and again, tends to focus on talking about and thinking about deep, obscure topics rather than superficial, trivial matters."

Here's the original article.

quora.com/Is-Peter-Thiel…
Read 5 tweets
David Perell Profile picture
5 Oct
My favorite way to find interesting ideas is to look for things that don't make sense.

When something doesn't make sense, most people turn away and focus on something else. Don't do that. Think of it as an invitation to learn instead.

Here's my short article.
I first heard this idea in 2016 while attending an interview with @IAmAdamRobinson.

He said: "One of the key things to investing is to be aware when you hear a voice in your head that says it doesn’t make sense. That’s where the gold mine is — things that don’t make sense.”
When the world does the opposite of what you think it’s going to do, it’s not the world that’s wrong. It’s you.

Here's the key point: The factor causing the world to behave differently than you think is more influential than ALL the ones you’re considering.
Read 4 tweets
David Perell Profile picture
4 Oct
One of the weirdest things about modern urbanism is that we build the opposite of what we like.

We adore Europe’s narrow streets, but build skyscraper-lined cities with six-lane roads and sterile shopping malls, that are impossible to walk.
Right now, I’m living in a suburb of Austin, Texas. I don’t have a car so I’m entirely dependent on delivery workers and my roommates (who have cars) if I want to go anywhere.

Tires, not feet, are the engines of practical reality which makes you feel powerless as a meager human.
American society is entirely oriented around the car.

I saw this when I registered to vote last week. To prove identity, the form asked for my driver’s license, not my passport. That’s not necessarily a problem, but it reveals how we serve cars instead of making them serve us.
Read 6 tweets
David Perell Profile picture
27 Sep
Officially obsessed with Oxford’s “Very Short Introduction” series.

The books are generally well-written and don’t have any fluff, which is everything I want from non-fiction. Plus, they’re short enough to read in 2-3 nights.

Highly recommend.
If you only read these books for a decade you’d be better educated, across a wide variety of disciplines, than almost anybody in your social circle.

Here’s the full list of books.

global.oup.com/academic/conte…
My five roommates and I are studying American government, so we’re reading the one about the U.S. Constitution together.

We have ~40 of them in the house, so I skim through a different one every day. Combined, the collection is like a tour guide for polymaths.
Read 5 tweets
David Perell Profile picture
25 Sep
New long-form article!

This deep dive is all about podcasting. It's everything I've learned in four years, across more than 100 interviews, about preparation, production, and promotion.

I've also shared my favorite ideas in this thread.

perell.com/blog/how-i-pro…
1. Cold email is your best friend

Contact people directly if you can. Almost everybody, no matter how powerful they are, reads their personal email. If you can’t find somebody’s email with a Google search, find their personal website or the website of the company they work for.
2. Contacting big-name writers

Many writers only do podcasts when they're promoting a book. Email authors right when you hear they’re releasing a new book. When you do, offer to record the podcast early but release it when the book comes out.

That's what I did with Seth Godin.
Read 10 tweets

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