WELCOME TO WRITERPRENEUR
I got 10k views in my 4th month on Medium when I stopped these 3 things
Everyone tells you to do this to grow. When I stopped, my account blew up
I started writing seriously in December.
Here are my December vs. April results.
I did this without…
- Posting everyday (I post 1–3x weekly)
- Writing articles that take days to complete (my average article takes me 2 hours to write, edit, and post)
- writing “original” content (no more trying to come up with ideas of what to write about)
Let’s break this down:
1. I didn’t post everyday
I don’t believe in Gary Vee’s “Eat Ramen, post 10x a day for 6 years before you get 1k followers.”
That’s unsustainable. You have a day-job. You have hobbies. You (might) have a relationship. Those are not worth sacrificing for an audience.
Plus, there’s a hidden assumption here:
“If you’re consistent, the audience will come.”
This is a dangerous assumption.
This leads to you ignoring what the audience is saying.
If you post 10 articles about the alkaline levels of restaurant water and none of them gain traction, the audience is speaking. They’re not interested.
This could be because your ideal audience isn’t on this platform.
Or because you lack skills in creating attractive headlines, frames, or hooks to put around your idea.
Or because the audience isn’t interested in the topic. They are ignoring you.
To double down on posting when you’re getting no traction, hoping that you’ll get traction at some point, is a pre-TikTok mentality.
Quick algorithm lesson here — TikTok was the first platform to introduce an “interest” based algorithm. Before TikTok, platforms used a “follower” based algorithm.
This means you had to build your following so that your audience would see your posts.
The more you posted, the larger your following grew.
Hence, the “post everyday” advice.
Nowadays, if the content is good (interesting), the algorithm will share it with your potential audience.
That potential audience doesn’t need to be following you already.
This means every piece of content has the potential to take off.
If it doesn’t, it’s because it isn’t packaged well or people aren’t interested.
It’s not because you lack followers.
One clarification here: I did write nearly-every-day.
This wasn’t to have content to post (most of what I wrote never got posted), but to develop the SKILL of writing.
2. I didn’t write articles that take days to complete
Okay, so… This is a lie. I actually DID write an article that took me 2-weeks to complete.
After my first article took off, I broke my cardinal rule.
What is my cardinal rule? Don’t Reinvent The Wheel.
When an article takes off, it’s because of a combination of the idea, frame, headline, hook, and/or structure. Identify which combo lead to the growth through trial and error, and repeat.
Instead of doing this, I decided to take the idea of the article and throw everything else out the window.
I wrote 10k+ words. It took me 2 weeks of daily writing to complete. And after I posted it… I got… Crickets…
To this day, it’s one of my lowest-performing articles.
Yet it’s the article I invested the most time into.
That’s when I learned a harsh truth.
Investing time into an article before you’ve validated it is a waste.
After that, I decided to spend my time creating a validation process. rather than writing whatever I wanted to write.
That validation process, is point number 3:
3. I didn’t write original content
When I started, most of the articles I wrote were articles that I wanted to write.
“I know the audience — this is gonna be the best article for them,” I thought.
Predictably, none of those articles gained any traction.
Pretty bleak.
I finally got tired of writing with no one reading (anyone else In this boat?)
Here’s the 3 steps I decided to follow:
1. I found an article that went viral.
Btw — viral in this context means it got more claps then this author usually gets.
If it went viral, it means the idea, frame, headline, hook, and/or structure resonated with the audience.
2. I wrote a similar article with my own spin on it.
I used the same idea, headline framework, and structure.
3. I switched up part of the article (This case, the frame and hook) based on my personal experience and opinion .
This is what happened:
That article absolutely took off!
to make sure this wasn’t a weird coincidence, I continued to test it.
I did this same thing in March, and April.
Here are those results:
That’s when I realized: I don’t know what “good” content is.
What I believe is “good” content gets 0 views.
So my definition of “good” and the audiences definition of “good” are different.
As I write more content that the audience views as “good”, I’ll learn the rules. But if I insist of writing what I believe is “good” content, I’ll never learn.
I stopped focusing on what I wanted to write, and started focusing on what my potential reader wanted to read.
This is crucial, so let me highlight it again for you:
I was able to grow this quickly when I stopped focusing on what I wanted to write, and started focusing on what the potential reader wanted to read.
BONUS
3 is such a good number, but really, there was 1 more thing that lead to this result…
4. I stopped writing for a niche
The first few articles were very niche-focused (e.g. “Product Market Fit is a myth — Do this instead”).
After writing a lot of content like this, I realized something…
There’s a PERSON reading that article (earth-shattering, I know).
People have more things going on then simply trying to solve their “product market fit” issue.
They’re worried about their time management. And their productivity. And managing their team. And… so on…
That’s when I decided to change my approach. Instead of writing for a niche, I would write for a PERSON.
This opened up an entire new world on content. In this new world of content, I was able to find more “viral” content to mimic.
This has lead to me to gain over 1,200 in 4.5 months.
I’ve also had 178 email opt-ins from this organic content.
And I’ve had over 25 people join the Writerpreneur community.
All in 4.5 months.
All off of organic content.
All by doing the opposite of what you’re told to do.
June 1st I’ll be running an 8-week Skill Development Cohort where I teach 10 people this process, and I help them do it.
This involves committing to 1 hour of daily writing (on your own), and one 90-minute weekly group zoom call.
This Skill Development Cohort will be free and only released to those on my email list, so click here to join the email list.
Because I want to give each person 1:1 attention, I’m limiting the total number of available spots to 10.
If this interests you, Click here to join the mailing list and be the first to hear about it.
