⚡️ A QUICK NOTE ABOUT OUR FEATURED SPONSOR ⚡️

Thanks to this week’s newsletter sponsor: Baserow

Super thrilled to introduce Baserow to you all and the wider world today! I stumbled across Baserow on Twitter a few months ago and it piqued my interest right away. Why?

For years, I wondered if there would be an Airtable competitor as it has a near monopoly in the space and yet the market is so wide and open. Although there have been several attempts to challenge Airtable, Baserow stood out to me because it's open-source. Which means it's entirely customizable and developer-friendly and yet it's super accessible to the non-technical people on the team as well. Check out the wide range of templates, they blew my mind!

After trying out Baserow and getting to know the founder Bram’s vision, I instantly agreed to hunt the product on Product Hunt and share this powerful tool with the larger PH community! 🎉

In short, Baserow, is an Airtable alternative that helps people build databases with minimal technical prowess. I am planning to explore the tool a lot further in the coming months, I hope you'll check it out and see if it makes sense for your projects and businesses. Click on the button below to support the launch today and feel free to add any questions or comments as well! Thanks in advance 🙏

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In today’s edition, I decided to reflect on my journey of building an audience online through creating content. And how it changed my life.

This interview was meant for my upcoming profile/ feature on Story Alley but I’m sharing a raw version of this here first.

If you met me in Oct 2018 at Kula Coffee Co, one of my frequent coffee shops in Atlanta, you’d have thought I was going nowhere. I was filled with despair and hopelessness given the fact that I just made the difficult decision to shut down my SaaS startup ClosingPage. I made a lot of rookie mistakes which I documented here.

At the time, I had 414 followers on Twitter, no podcast, no email newsletters and virtually zero network both in Atlanta and globally. I was in a rough patch and the future looked bleak. But I took notice of one mega error I made in the previous chapter I vowed I’d never repeat again. What was it?

That I didn’t focus on building an audience/network of other like-minded founders or peers in my niche. I was being on the sidelines as just a ‘consumer’ of other people’s content and building my startup in my own little corner quietly.

Why did I decide to build an audience? How I did it?

You can’t control startup failures and business outcomes but you can however control whether you decide to be a proactive creator or a passive consumer. I was tired of being a spectator in the peanut gallery. I wanted to become a creator and get into the arena. This was the choice that was in front of me in Oct 2018.

I saw the likes of Ben Tossell, Bram Kanstein, Pieter Levels etc. create content on Twitter and document their journey publicly no matter what they were building.

So I vowed to never be without a network/audience advantage ever. And I knew that if I created content and gave value to people, good things will happen. So I began my journey in the winter of 2018.

Some key wins since then:

• Grew Twitter from 414 followers to 37,700+

• Grew newsletter from 0 to 7100+ subscribers

• Grew podcast to 1000s of listeners and landed interviews with iconic guests like Gary Vee, Sahil Lavingia, Alexis Ohanian, Kat Cole etc.

But really what I am proud of?

• 30,400+ tweets created

• 44 episodes of the podcast published

• 11 editions of the newsletter shipped (in the last 11 weeks)

• And more importantly, I did all this on the side while navigating 2 leadership roles at fast-growing startups (On Deck and Day One) and later becoming a dad. I’m proud of my determination.

What impact (e.g. opportunities, contacts, etc. that have come your way) has audience building had for you?

Having an audience has either directly or indirectly led to the below key wins in my career:

• My two high-profile startup leadership roles both came from building in public and putting out “bat signals” boldly and showing how I can help startups (see the below tweets)

KP @thisiskp_

For a decade, I limited myself to only building side-projects due to tough visa policies & other reasons The dream has always been to work at an ambitious startup with good people to make a positive impact w/ technology I'm on the job market now, where will I go next?🔥

3:15 PM ∙ Sep 10, 2020

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86Likes3Retweets

KP @thisiskp_

Update: My time at On Deck is coming to an end soon After building a world-class no-code community of 360+ fellows of founders, operators & tech talent — I’m grateful for this epic chapter 🙏 I’ll be on the job market on May 20, DMs open now :) But what suits me best? (🧵)

KP @thisiskp_

Announcing some big news shortly Stay tuned 👀

4:12 PM ∙ May 7, 2022

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294Likes12Retweets

• Much of my personal brand’s credibility came from pitching my podcast in public and recruiting iconic guests and business leaders in public (like Gary Vee and Alexis Ohanian and many more, see below)

KP @thisiskp_

Shooting my shot today🏀 100% ready to take a NO :) Hey @garyvee 👋 I'm an immigrant & u've been a huge inspiration for 10 yrs Do you mind hopping for a quick chat on my show (anchor.fm/buildinpublic) & discuss NFTs + "document don't create"? This would make my entire DECADE!

anchor.fmBuild In Public Podcast • A podcast on AnchorAn interview show by KP where he chats with ambitious founders and creators building in public and breaks down their mindset, best prac...

5:50 PM ∙ Mar 7, 2021

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366Likes13Retweets

KP @thisiskp_

Shooting my shot ⭐️🏀 After @garyvee, another icon that inspires me is @alexisohanian From helping tell stories of founders like @jewelmelanie (Partpic ‘14), building 776 in public & being a dad in tech Alexis, any chance u’d want to chat abt these on BUILD IN PUBLIC pod?🙏

7:01 PM ∙ Aug 27, 2021

• In almost all occasions, I have been pro-active and been able to put myself “out there” without giving into the fears of public rejection or embarrassment. That skill alone helped me immensely over the years.

• Finally, outside of credibility and jobs, I’ve been able to build a world-class network filled with top investors, founders and ambitious creators because of my content output and consistency. I’ve interviewed so many of them on my podcast but there are 100x more people who I built relationships on private DMs, Zooms and emails etc.

Now, let’s get in the weeds. What were the tactics that helped you grow the most? Why?

Here are the 5 tactics/secrets that helped me a lot:

• I discovered a secret which came as a surprise to me. That is creating content is a 3 dimensional game. Let’s say on X-axis, you’ve got the polish of your content. Y-axis is about value to people. Z-axis is about iterations. A lot of people are obsessed about X-axis alone and do abysmally poor in Y and Z axes. They are so worried about fine-tuning and optimizing their content to make it ‘look perfect’ while forgetting that what matters a lot more is Y-axis (value to people). I’ve learned this quickly and stopped worrying about how ‘well refined’ my work is. I obsess over value and iterations 10x more than an average creator I think. Which means naturally, I accrue more goodwill and social capital because my content is way more consistent and helpful… despite it’s lack of perfection. Aim to be prolific, not perfect.

• The 2nd secret of my growth is that I am very disciplined when it comes to sticking with a niche. So many beginners constantly toggle between niches because they haven’t found the right niche and they are trying to mimic or copy other viral content. I don’t give a sh*t about virality. I know it will come and go as it pleases so I’d rather not worry. In stead, I focus more on being insanely focussed on evangelizing my worldview (which is ‘building in public’). Your niche doesn’t have to be too complicated, just pick a worldview or a strong opinion and that can be a niche too. For ex: If you believe async work is the future, just turn that into a niche and create a boat load of content for 2 years and you’ll reap insane rewards.

• The 3rd secret is that I barely compare my journey and the current chapter to anyone else’s. I did this for a while and it drained me and I almost quit because I thought I wasn’t growing fast enough. I finally overcame this limiting belief and became focussed on playing my game my way. I am very ambitious yet at the same time very content with my path so far. I want to focus on decades, not days. This is the mantra I repeat to myself in my head and it frees my brain from worry and helps me create a lot of content across Twitter, Podcast or Youtube etc.

• The 4th secret is that I study other great content creators who’re building huge audiences only to understand their techniques and tactics. For ex: Justin Welsh has some great tactics so I like to study his content. It’s important to learn from others and be inspired. However, I caution that you should focus on being yourself and using your own authentic voice or style so people get to know you better.

• The 5th secret is that I approach content creation with a combination of intensity and joy. Yes, I try to be prolific but I do it in a state of flow. Someone recently gave me a wonderful compliment that I reminded him of an athlete with a strong endurance. I am grateful for the kind words because I actually do view myself as gritty. I put a lot of effort into becoming someone who’s prolific and whose output is ridiculously high. But I do it with joy. I like to take a lot of shots on the goal (create content) and have fun doing it.. and if only a small sliver of that succeeds, that’s enough for me.

What is one piece of advice you wish someone gave you in the beginning of your audience building journey?

You might be able to guess this by now. Be prolific.

You can’t control virality. You can’t control the outcomes, follower counts, serendipitous opportunities, revenue figures etc. But you can control whether you show up to your audience and add value. Being prolific is the only thing you can control and if you can be world-class at it, the rest will all fall in place.

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And that’s a wrap for now!

Thank you for giving your attention and checking this edition out.

Would really appreciate it if you can take 5 seconds and pay it forward to help someone else leverage these tips by sharing this article on Twitter/Linkedin and tag me (@thisiskp_). Feel free to DM me for cross-promotions or ad sponsorships.

With that said, I wish you great success whenever you decide to begin that inner journey to being prolific.