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.
Transform your career in 100 days
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Hey Reader, Most people consume content their entire lives but never create any. There's an unwritten rule that explains why some people build influence while others stay invisible. I call it the 1% Rule of content creation.
That final step—documenting your journey—is what separates those who get things done from those who build leverage through an audience. My friend Delphine Le Grand decided to post every day on LinkedIn for 100 days. When she started, she had 1,000 followers. When she finished, she had 20,000 followers and a ton of connections and influence. Steven Bartlett, host of The Diary of a CEO, made a similar commitment at age 24 to write a tweet every day. He said it was the single biggest hack in his life. Every day at 7pm, he'd spend an hour crafting a tweet and screenshot it for Instagram. The results were transformative: 2 million Instagram followers, better communication skills, and a habit that turned everyday moments into useful insights. It taught him how to communicate ideas in a concise, high-impact way and what people respond to. The barrier to joining the influential 1% isn't talent or connections. It's the willingness to share what you're learning as you go. The bar is much lower than you think. It's actually really easy to scroll through LinkedIn, reach up, press the New Post button, and write something. We're not talking about mastering a new skill. But if we look at it, there has to be a reason so few people actually do it. Two things hold people back: 1. Mental hangups. The fear of embarrassment, failure, or judgment. These are real, but they're also the exact barriers that keep 99% of people from breaking through. 2. The discipline to stay consistent. It's simple, but not easy. Showing up every day requires commitment most people aren't willing to make. If we assume Delphine spent 90 minutes a day creating content—and that's generous, many days were likely much shorter—that's 150 hours total. Would you spend 150 hours to get 20,000 engaged followers? How much would that be worth to your career? You could transform your life in 100 days. When you have an audience, everything changes. Instead of chasing opportunities, they come to you. Instead of proving your expertise, people already know what you're good at. Instead of starting from zero with each new project, you have thousands of people ready to support what you build next. Pick a topic you're obsessed with. Post about it every day for 100 days. Learn as you go. Stay focused on that topic. If you're doing good work, start talking about it. 99% of people never get that far. I've written a new essay I’ve been working on for over a year called The Audience Shortcut: How the Right People Paying Attention Changes Everything where I dive deeper into this topic. In the essay, I cover common objections to building an audience, share more case studies, explain the power of a micro audience, and show you how to create instant authority. If this newsletter resonated with you, I guarantee you'll find it helpful: Read The Audience Shortcut essay » PODCASTWe’re Scaling Jefferson’s Fisher’s Business To $10M (Here’s How)Jefferson Fisher is back on the podcast for a full strategy session on scaling his $2M business to $10M—without burning out. We dive into his podcast, newsletter, book, speaking, AI product, and fast-growing membership, then map out what to prioritize, how to structure the right team, and what to quit altogether. We map out:
Watch or listen to episode » KIT FEATUREMake every email shoppable with the Shopify appThe new Shopify app is here:
Start driving more sales from your online store: View Shopify app on the Kit App Store Don't have an account yet? VIDEOCursor Replaces Your Entire Business StackThis episode of Greg Isenberg's podcast is really good. He applies Cursor and MCPs to finance and sales tasks in a way I haven't seen it done before. Amir shows how you can automate financial reporting, UX analysis, and QA testing all within a single application instead of jumping between different tools. I especially love how the preset files and prompts allow for easy access and constrained tasks. You'll see demonstrations of generating client quotes in seconds and AI agents that can actually navigate forms and pass CAPTCHAs. It's a glimpse into using LLMs as the primary interface for business operations. 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, In February 2017, Barrett Brooks and I had a crazy idea: We should start the best business conference for creators. Each of us had our own careers transformed by who we met at conferences. The right event led to the right connections, which would accelerate your creator career by years. I wanted to create that opportunity for every creator in our community and there wasn’t an event that blended business strategy, connection, and inspiration. At the time, we were a software company...
Hey Reader, I just published a new essay called The Audience Shortcut that explores how the right people paying attention changes everything. But there's something I see holding back most skilled professionals from building an audience. It's what I call the credibility gap. You know that feeling when someone asks what you do, and you stumble through an explanation? Or when you want to create content but worry people will think, "Who are you to talk about this?" That's the credibility gap in...
Hey Reader, I’m excited to share something I’ve been working on for over a year: My new essay, The Audience Shortcut: How the Right People Paying Attention Changes Everything. This is the core idea behind how I went from a string of failed startups to building a $45M/year company with no outside funding. It’s not about going viral or gaining millions of followers. It’s about getting the right people to pay attention—and how that changes everything. In this essay, I share the exact framework I...