I'm a designer who turned into a writer who turned into a startup CEO. My mission is to help creators earn a living. Subscribe for essays on building an audience and earning a living as a creator.
Make a name for yourself
|
Hey Reader, Do you ever worry about getting laid off? What would you do? Aaron Francis started work just like he did every morning only to learn his company was downsizing. And he was a part of the layoffs. After the shock of losing his job subsided, he wrote a post on X announcing the news to his 30,000 followers. What followed was pretty incredible. He got a huge outpouring of support, yes, but more importantly, he got job offers. A lot of job offers. Aaron had been teaching everything he knew about development and content creation and, as a result, made not only a lot of friends but a huge audience that knew he was good at what he did. And they were rooting for him to succeed. Thanks to his audience, being laid off turned into more inbound opportunities than Aaron could handle. Instead of desperately seeking opportunities, they came to him. This is just one way having a personal brand can be helpful. The benefits are huge:
Like Aaron, you also have skills, expertise, and knowledge. Unlike Aaron, you may not have an audience of 30,000 (and actually, that number is now 40,000 and growing!). But what if you did? What does it take to build a personal brand?The concept is relatively simple: 1. Get specificInstead of trying to be everything for everyone, narrow it down:
When you can explain what you do, who you help, and what makes you unique in a single sentence, you know you have clarity. 2. Deliver valueWhen it comes to creating content, what are the stories only you can tell? In a world of AI-generated content, this helps make what you share feel authentic. It also helps you stand out from the crowd and break free from the noise. When you have a specific audience in mind, and tell the stories only you can tell, you make yourself memorable. 3. Be consistentEven if you get everything above right, you can’t just do it one time. Show up every day, and put out content regularly to get results. If you can’t do it daily, at least publish weekly and stick to it. While the concept is simple, the execution can be difficult. This is where most people struggle:
All of this feels so overwhelming, you never start. Next thing you know, you’ve hit snooze on building your personal brand for a year—or many years, even. Make it easyOne of my favorite questions from Tim Ferriss is: “What would it look like if this were easy?” Even if you know what it would take and understand the process, doing it can feel like too much. There are courses and YouTube videos that teach you how to build a personal brand, but you’re still left doing all of the work—and you simply don’t have time. That’s why we created the Personal Brand Foundry. We don’t simply teach you what to do and say, “Good luck!” We know you’re busy, and that’s why we do it all for you:
This is what it would look like if it were easy. Get six months of content in two days. All you have to do is show up. PODCASTI Sold My $5,000,000 Business… Here’s HowThinking about selling your business? Listen to this episode first for tips on how to secure the best exit deal. In this episode, I interview Cathryn Lavery who sold her $5M business (and then bought it back)! She shares what she would have done differently and mistakes to avoid. We also talk about how $230,000 was stolen from her business, the ways she's personally using AI, and hiring overseas. Watch or listen to episode » BOOKNever Enough: From Barista to BillionaireMy friend, Andrew Wilkinson, co-founder of Tiny, recently released a book about his lessons learned on the road to wealth. If you’re a founder doing $1M/yr or more, you should definitely read Never Enough. There are lots of interesting stories and mistakes made along the way that you can learn from. If you’re interested in scaling, and thinking bigger than a single company, check it out. Have a great week! —Nathan |
Nathan Barry
I'm a designer who turned into a writer who turned into a startup CEO. My mission is to help creators earn a living. Subscribe for essays on building an audience and earning a living as a creator.
Hey Reader, If I could solve only one thing in my business, that would have the biggest impact, what would that be? This is the question every great entrepreneur obsesses over. Rather than trying to do everything at once, you look for the bottleneck and focus on solving that. There’s a book called The Goal by an Israeli physicist named Eliyahu Goldratt. It’s a 1984 business novel that business systems nerds love. However if you’re not a business systems nerd you probably… won’t love it. It’s...
Hey Reader, Have you ever spent money on something and immediately felt guilty afterward? Will Guidara spends his money foolishly on purpose. And he thinks you should too. He once bought an entire barrel of whiskey and put it in his basement. He also put a skee-ball machine in the office. Is he going to get a monetary return on either of these things? No. But that’s kind of the point. He calls it the 95/5 rule: Manage your money and time like a maniac 95% of the time (no expense is too...
Hey Reader, Have you ever spent a whole day on something almost nobody saw? It's painful when the whole reason you worked hard was because you wanted to reach people. If you teach a workshop in person, you reach the 20 people in that room. But if you record that same workshop once, you can keep teaching for years on autopilot. This is the concept of leverage, and it's something I talk about in my upcoming book, The Ladders of Wealth (you can pre-order it now). A lot of people will look back...