Thread by @jmikolay

I channel successful creators in my personal life and @gumroad

Here’s what I’ve learned from them in the past six months, in their own words.

Stages of the Builder’s Journey – a Blueprint for Aspiring Creators:

Don’t wait until you have a big following (i.e. start now)...
🔷“I had fewer than 300 followers when I started”
🔷“I had fewer than 400 followers when I started”
🔷“I had fewer than 500 followers when I started”

Create without a plan (i.e. just be creative)...
🔷“This started as an experiment”
🔷“I wasn’t trying to build a business”
🔷“I didn’t set out to become a creator”
🔷“This wasn’t something I thought I’d be doing”

Put yourself out there (i.e. publish)...
🔷“I wrote online”
🔷“I started blogging”
🔷“I posted what I was thinking”

Get good at something specific (i.e. build skill)...
🔷“I did it for a long time”
🔷“I wrote and taught for a decade”
🔷“I earned credibility through experience”
🔷“I did the same thing over and over again”

Repeatedly help others (i.e. add value)...
🔷“I gave away what I was learning for free”
🔷“I started to get a reputation for helping people”
🔷“I learned the hard way and relayed it to others”

Engage with people and listen closely (i.e. pay attention)...
🔷“People started saying, ‘Can you help me do this?’”
🔷“People wanted to learn from me specifically”
🔷“I was asked the same questions over and over again”

Feel the heat in the market (i.e. notice imbalances)...
🔷“I couldn’t encapsulate everything in one reply”
🔷“It was impossible to explain in a short comment”
🔷“It started to become a supply-and-demand issue”
🔷“That spillover became the opportunity”

Locate proof of demand (i.e. create deliberately)...
🔷“I posted a thread and got a big response”
🔷“I proved there was an opportunity to elaborate more”
🔷“There was interest about a subject I knew well”

Pick a topic (i.e. find your niche)...
🔷“It's something I love”
🔷“Other people respond to it”
🔷“I have a lot of background in it”
🔷“It’s a thing I know how to do well”
🔷“This comes naturally to me and I get excited about it”

Build for the sake of building (i.e. take a leap of faith)...
🔷“I took baby steps”
🔷“I had no idea whether it was going to make money”
🔷“I knew what I wanted, so I decided to write my own”
🔷“It wasn’t until later I realized I could sell something”

Package your expertise (i.e. build a product)...
🔷“People were paying for what I was doing”
🔷“I bet other people would too”
🔷“I started thinking about how I do it”

Time box the effort (i.e. give yourself a deadline)...
🔷“I decided to publish on Christmas Day”
🔷“I challenged myself to finish in a month”
🔷“I gave myself three weeks to write the whole thing”

Focus and commit (i.e. go all in)...
🔷“Every day I wrote at least half a page”
🔷“I worked hard to summarize everything I knew”
🔷“I was writing on weekends, nights, mornings, and lunch breaks”

Build in public and in private (i.e. incorporate feedback)...
🔷“I got extra eyes and filled in weak spots”
🔷“I brought on a professional editing team”
🔷“Other people made the product a lot more valuable”

Press publish (i.e. go live)...
🔷“When I was done I said, ‘Here’s this thing I’ve built’”
🔷“The great part was people getting value from it”
🔷“I was surprised by the success of the launch”
🔷“It was far more successful than my expectations”

Let one product inspire others (i.e. repeat the above)...
🔷“I would just love to keep doing what I love”
🔷“The true reward of the work is I get to do it”
🔷“There’s a saying, ‘The destination is the journey’”

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letter.substack.com/p/stages-of-th…