1 year ago I found Dan Koe, and I was obsessed with his one person business model. However I would have to wait 6 months to begin it.

I began the creator journey on twitter at the beginning of January 2024. I went through "2 Hour Writer" by Dan Koe and I didn’t even finish the course before I posted my first tweet.

From the outside it may have looked like smooth sailing and at some points it was. But in reality it was many ups and downs and lots of learning.

Since my first tweet, I’ve:

• Been suspended

• Wanted to stop posting

• Commented 150x times a day

• Struggled with imposter syndrome

• Grew my account to 735 followers

• Ghostwrote a Thread that got 1 million impressions

• Hosted a podcast with big creators like Taylin Simmonds, Viggo Fredrikksson, Brian Maierhofer and Jack Moses

After 6 months of experience I’ve learned 9 valuable lessons that if I had known. Would have helped me get to where I am now in half the time. Not only that but these lessons will help you to understand the creator game holistically at a much higher level.

These lessons have been compiled after 6 months of trial and error, thousands of dollars spent on education, and 13 podcasts spent with 13 different successful creators.

Why Should I care about these lessons?

If you're still not convinced that you should read these lessons then you have to understand a concept known as ignorance debt.

Ignorance debt is a debt that has to be paid off with learning. For example you and I have the ignorance debt of not knowing how to make 1 million dollars a month. The only way to pay that off is by learning and getting experience to pay off that debt.

Paying down your ignorance debt allows you to take a more direct path to success and that's what I hope these lessons will do for you.

Whether you're completely new to creating on twitter or you've been on it for some time these lessons will provide value.

If you're completely new these lessons will give you some principles to test and see if they serve you as they have served me and many other creators. If you have been in this game for a while these lessons can be helpful reminders for course correcting.

Not heeding these lessons could cause you to spend your valuable time heading down an indirect path toward your goals as a creator on Twitter.

9 Lessons from 6 months of creating on Twitter

1) Community

This may be one of the most actionable lessons of the 9 and it is incredibly powerful. Unlike Youtube whose algorithm is based mostly on the quality of the content. Twitter's algorithm is based on engagement(especially in the beginning).

This means if you have 20 followers and you have the most valuable post to have ever existed it will matter little because you don't have that community that will engage with your post and push it to others.

In the beginning you can build a community by commenting on other people's posts and sending DMs. This will help build a foundation of loyal fans who will help you get through the rough beginning stages of growth.

If you want to take it a step further you can start a mastermind or join a cohort or community. I've done this myself and it has been invaluable to have access to people who can help me to pay off my ignorance debt faster.

Because Twitter is such a community based platform building connections is much easier than many other platforms and it also can help to keep you consistent when things are rough because you have a community around you to support you.

Overall the large community aspect of Twitter is one of my favorite things about the platform.

2) Unfair Advantage

This is crucial to standing out not only as an account on Twitter but also as an Authority. You have to find what makes you different. For me that is the fact that I'm creating at 15 and that I have a depth of knowledge in many intellectual topics that is higher than most 15 year olds.

For you it might be that you have an intersection of interests like AI and Spirituality. 

Everyone has an unfair advantage BEING THEMSELVES.

You may not know your unfair advantage right now but it is crucial that you determine what it is soon if you want to stand out on Twitter or on any platform.

An unfair advantage is the difference between all the struggling creators and the few successful creators.

3) Intelligent Imitation

For learning in the beginning this is one of the most important lessons. One that I wish I did more.

Imitation is how you have learned since you were born, you imitated how to walk, talk, and so much more.

And it doesn't lose its use later on in life.

Intelligent imitation is where you consciously pick up on what is working for other creators and emulate the things that work. For example if you see that a specific style of hook or thread is performing well, intelligently imitating it would be implementing that into your content. Either directly using the same style hook or adding a spin on it.

You can intelligently imitate:

• Bio

• Hooks

• Website

• Threads

• Branding

• Pinned Post

• And much more

I recommend that you build a swipe file of content from other creators that performed well. From this you can reference them when creating your own content and implement things from the high performing content into your content.

For example you might be writing a thread, you can look at your swipe file and experiment with different hook styles that you see in the high performing threads. And pick the one that you think works best.

You don't have to reinvent the wheel and I think before you reinvent the wheel you first have to study what is working so you can take what is working and add a spin on it.

4) Get a Bit Better at Everything

If you want to build your own unfair advantage this is how you do it. You have to put in the extra effort.

If you get slightly better at:

• Hooks

• Writing

• Building

• Studying

• Analyzing

• Formatting

• Networking

• Storytelling

It will be difficult not to stand out. Getting slightly better at each of these individually might not seem like a big deal on its own, however when added up it has exponential results.

This can be seen with my friend Martin.

He has grown to 700 followers in about a month, the reason for this is that he has an unfair advantage. His unfair advantage is that he is a little bit better than beginners at many things. This makes him stand out, especially as a small account.

If you get 10% better than the average at those bullet points from earlier it will be difficult not to grow faster and stand out.

5) The Danger of Chasing Followers

This goes back to the idea of community. Holistically especially in the beginning you want to focus on building an engaged loyal community rather than a large disinterested audience.

Chasing followers is easy cheap dopamine, because you can write platitudes, do follow for follow, etc and get followers. However if you focus on followers as the goal you may inadvertently not build a skill. Instead of focusing on good writing, hooks, ideas, etc as the goal(where followers are a by product) you focus on a follower count.

Now I believe that for most people this is a costly mistake. I believe that you want intrinsic motivators like mastery. The metrics like follower count, comments, etc can be a reference point to help gauge your level of mastery.

Followers Should Be a Reference Point Not the Goal.

6) Self Reflection/Analysis

This follows hand in hand with the idea that - “Followers Should Be a Reference Point Not the Goal”.

And followers should be one of the many reference points for analysis and reflection. You can also use other metrics to measure the quality of your content such as engagement rate, positive comments, and the momentum that a post generates for your brand.

Analysis can also be parameters like varied sentence length, white space, and using lists. This game has so many levels to it and there is an incredible amount to learn. Self Reflection/Analysis is crucial for preventing overwhelm and increasing learning.

This is one of the most recent lessons that I have learned. If I had grasped it earlier I would have progressed much faster.

The key with analysis is to have a balance between action and analysis/study. If you get too caught up in either camp you will find diminishing results. In the beginning an action bias is crucial but only if you learn from your actions and analyze the results of them.

For me I had an action bias that was too strong because I overcorrected from past mistakes I made when I was in analysis paralysis. For instance a couple years ago I wanted to start a car washing business and I spent weeks and many hours researching the best equipment and the best way to price my services. I spent so much time that I got overwhelmed and never took action in the first place. This was a recurring theme in many of my other business ventures.

So with Twitter I did basically the polar opposite - everything I learned I implemented and this was great and better than never taking action. However I took action sort of blindly without putting enough emphasis on analyzing the results of my actions and improving them.

7) The 4 Levers

There are a couple levers for your creator business - Building, Writing, Networking/Distribution, and Learning.

Building

This is crucial for your entire creator business. This is a powerful way to stand out.

There are many different things that you can build:

• Lead Magnet

• Paid Course

• Ebook

Just to name a few. You should make sure you spend a good amount of time building something every week/every day. Having built something helps you build authority and can also be useful in growth(by launching a giveaway).

Writing

This is the backbone to everything for content creation on twitter.

This is how you get traffic, get ideas, write comments, take notes etc.

You should spend everyday writing. You can write anything, a newsletter, long form, a thread whatever it is you just need to write everyday.

Once you've established a habit of daily writing, it's time to apply lesson six: consistently analyze and improve your writing.

Networking/Distribution

"There's a distribution problem in the beginning" - Taylin Simmonds said on my podcast

The problem in the beginning is that no one is seeing your content. The way you get people to see your content is by following lesson one. You build a community through DMs and commenting.

Networking not only helps you to make friends and learn faster but it also helps with your distribution.

Learning

This lever helps to improve all parts of your creator business. It helps to improve your learning, skills, awareness, analysis, and so much more.

Learning can be:

• Books

• Podcasts

• Paid and Free Courses

• Etc

Learning is how you pay off your ignorance debt.

If you want to take it to the next level for paying off your ignorance debt you can pay for 1-1 coaching. 

By paying for access you not only build a strong network but also pay off your ignorance debt faster because you get personalized feedback rather than general advice.

8) Podcasting

This personally has been the most powerful for learning, networking, and building my skill of speaking.

If you don't want to host a podcast my next recommendation would be to hop on calls with other creators consistently. The benefit of a podcast is that it is easier to get on bigger creators because there is more in it for them to go on a podcast vs a call.

The reason is that the podcast has leverage because it gets posted while a call does not because it will never be public.

Doing a podcast with someone also builds that person's social proof even more because usually podcast hosts won't pick a guest who isn't competent at what they do. It helps to build the podcast guests authority even further.

For me this is my favorite part about creating because I love asking questions, however if you're not comfortable with starting a podcast the next best option is to hop on calls with people.

9) Systems vs Experimentation

Now this lesson could be an entire newsletter, but I'll try to sum it up here.

There is an immense interplay between systems and experimentation and I don't think you ever want to get stuck in either for too long.

Experimentation breeds innovation.

Systems breed consistency.

Both are important and together it may be possible to have consistent innovation.

Now I want to make something clear with systems. You can't create a system without competence.

For instance in soccer if you're trying to run a 4-5-2 to control the game and the possession it will be difficult to run this system if the individual components/players aren't competent.

For example if you as the manager try to run this system and the players don't have a good first touch, can't pass accurately, and have poor field vision it will be difficult to have the system run effectively.

The same can be said with systems as a creator. If you are trying to build a content system for growth but haven't built the skill of writing, hooks, etc. You will build a system that will produce poor content. This is also why lesson six is so important. You have to consistently put energy into the system by maintaining it with reflection and analysis to see if the system can be improved and tuned up.

And within your system you have to make room for experimentation or else you may think you have hit your peak when in fact you have only scratched the surface.

With experimentation you can strike gold and then the next step is to build the competence to strike gold more than once, then you can systemize it.

1. Experimentation/Innovation

2. Competence in the new idea/skill

3. Systemize the process

The beauty of building systems for solving problems and getting results is that you can sell these later and earn from them.

That’s all for this letter.

If you enjoyed it, you’ll enjoy what went on this week (below).

Christian LaBosco

Update on This Last Week

I hosted a podcast with one of the fastest growing creators on Twitter(X). This podcast was a 2 hour masterclass on everything to do with growing a personal brand on X. In this podcast powerful processes, concepts, and more were shared. This podcast will be up next Friday at 10am. You can get a notification for when it goes up by subscribing to my youtube channel.

There's also a new podcast out Today with Toan Truong and another podcast will be released this Sunday. I would appreciate it if you commented on Spotify or Youtube with your biggest lesson or take away and what you thought of the podcast!

I've also been building a 3 month coaching program for new creators on twitter who want help with brand clarity, brand direction, building their writing skill and so much more.

If this interested you click here and DM me “Creator”

(There are limited spots because I can only have 3 students at a time)

PS. The youtube version of this newsletter will be up in 2 weeks and I hope you have a wonderful rest of your week.