THREAD: 10 significant things that the best startup founders get right.

(From my notes helping 400+ founders grow their startups.)

A framework for good writing.

1. Use draft 1 to find your novel ideas, which are:

• Counter-intuitive
• Counter-narrative
• Shock and awe

2. Draft 2 is for making those novel ideas stick—via:

• Stories
• Analogies
• Examples

Writing quality = Novelty x Resonance

THREAD ON BUILDING A WRITING HABIT:

If it's hard to get yourself to write,

I surveyed 100+ people to identify how they overcome their blockers.

For writing blogs, books, screenplays:

Blocker #1: Procrastination

If you procrastinate occasionally, that’s normal—forgive yourself.

However, if you procrastinate endlessly, that’s a problem.

Procrastination is the result of two reflexes:

• Indulging in immediate rewards like browsing YouTube instead of writing.

• Avoiding work you perceive to be uncomfortable or tedious.

Let's tackle these two blockers.

A. Avoid distractions

Have you noticed how much writing we can get done on airplanes—despite having our knees and shoulders uncomfortably squeezed together for hours?

Why is that?

It's because there's nothing else to do on an airplane.

This reveals a truth about writing: needing a comfy chair, room, or "the right ambience" is a myth.

If you're waiting until your room is the right temperature to begin writing, you're lying to yourself.

Your blocker is not comfort, but rather distractions.

Two strategies:

Elon Musk is on record that he makes decisions using the same technique as Jeff Bezos.

I found YouTube videos of them explaining it.

A thread on thinking more clearly:

This thread is about mental models.

Yes, Twitter has enough of these.

BUT, people never answer the question:

How do I use mental models for everyday decisions? How do I put them into practice?

Mental models are frameworks for thinking.

They simplify complex situations so you can reason through them easily.

They help you make good, long-term decisions without needing to know everything about a situation.

Your hunter-gatherer brain is not wired to use the best model for every decision.

However, in every generation, a few humans manage to rewire their biology:

They force themselves to think in models constantly.

Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos appear to be two of those people. They're on record about this.

THREAD: How to choose what to write about.

When you're blocked by the lie of "writer's block."

1. First, where I get ideas from:

• I teach others and rewrite the transcriptions into blog posts.

• I capture real stories I tell over dinner. Vulnerable, authentic experiences.

• I find strong opinions (on Twitter) that I disagree with. My counter-argument becomes a post.

Of these ideas, the BEST is whichever I can't not write about.

Which idea, of all those swimming inside your brain, are you compelled to pursue the way Ahab was driven to hunt Moby Dick?
—Steven Pressfield

Here's the two-step framework for finding your "must write" ideas:

My first step is choosing an objective for my article, such as:

My day job is growing startups.

I've worked with a few hundred by now.

Here's how to grow your podcast, newsletter, blog, YouTube, and Twitter.

Hope this helps! A thread:

Growth marketing, a timeline:

2015: "We need to go viral."

2017: "Well, we raised $25m of VC. Let's dump it on Facebook ads."

2021: "Wow. We should have been focusing on content and building a great product."

How to grow a podcast:

• Be YouTube-first; do video
• Split eps into 8min YouTube clips with SEO’d titles
• Get guests that are searched for on YouTube
• Consider not publishing bad eps
• Exchange eps with other shows
• Niche is fine, but be widely accessible

How to grow a YouTube channel:

• Describe the video's value in the first five seconds
• Ask a question you don't resolve until the last five seconds
• With YT algo, 1 amazing video > 10 good videos
• Quick cuts don't give people time to ask if they're bored

—Mr. Beast

Some tips for growing newsletters:

• Plug it at the end of a tweet thread.
• Swap plugs with other newsletters.
• Send a sample issue upon signup to excite people for future issues.
• Consider twice-monthly over weekly. My poll revealed people are fatigued with newsletters.

I interviewed 5 billionaires this week

I asked them to share their lessons learned on startups, life and entrepreneurship:

Here's what they told me:

A startup idea isn't "one" idea

It's a 10000 ideas, 100,000 decisions and 1,000,000 headaches

You will lose some friends. Kiss most of your high school friends goodbye

Certainties of life:

- Death
- Taxes
- Losing friends

A sign of wealth:

No longer needing an alarm clock to wake up

When in doubt, please don't send that angry email response

Wait 24h. Go for a walk

Angriness makes you drunk. Send emails sobers

198 engineering seats were available for every 1 lakh people in India. Of all states, Tamil Nadu has the highest per capita seats with 705 for 1 Lakh Tamil Nadu citizens.

However, based on the Employability Test report by SHL, it seems that the states with the highest per capita seats also produce the most unemployable engineers (software engineers shown in this map)

How I created a six figure business by only writing tweets in a third world country.

A thread on how a razor and $50 changed my life:

I'm by no means special, I'm actually stubborn as fuck.

English isn't my first language.

For months I just lurked Twitter not doing anything.

It was not until an opportunity literally fell in my lap that I decided to take it.

But here's how I did it (and how you can too):

The funniest part of the story is how I did literally nothing for months on Twitter.

Just write, write, write.

Meanwhile, I saw everyone winning.

"I made $100k last year!"

"I made $50k last month!"

"This tweet made me $1,000!"

I started asking questions:

"How the fuck do you make $50k in a month?"

"Clients? How do you get your first client?"

"What would my clients even pay for?"

Then I kinda put it aside and kept writing tweets.

100 followers, then 1k, then 2k then 10k and it all went pretty well

One problem tho:

I loved it.

I really did. Writing is so fucking dope to me.

But I haven't make a single cent from it.

Zero.

"Follow your passion" seemed like bullshit, until it hit me: