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​Podcast, YouTube, Blog​

Dear founder,

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I recently had a consulting call with a founder who asked me the question I've heard countless times before: "How can I write posts that go viral?"

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THE BOOTSTRAPPED FOUNDER • EPISODE 377 377 — Virality is Poisonous 11:16 MORE INFO

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Now, here are 59 rules for how to write that viral hook!

Yeah, no. Just kidding.

Many founders chase virality because they believe it will increase their number of customers, prospects, or collaborators. They dream of creating content that gets millions of views, hoping to find value in those numbers. But I've learned that for indie hackers and creators in our world of solopreneurs and independent business owners, chasing virality is not just ineffective—it's actively harmful to your business.

Here's why.

First, unless you have a naturally polarizing personality and genuinely enjoy controversy, creating viral content consistently requires you to fake it. You'll need to be polarizing all the time because virality happens when something is so appealing that people feel compelled to interact with it—either through complete agreement or total disagreement.

If you're like most of us—someone with moderate, nuanced opinions who believes in the good in everybody, who thinks there's no "right" programming language and that everyone should use what works best for them—you won't be edgy enough to create virality through polarization. Your reasonable, thoughtful takes won't go viral unless they express wisdom in a way that's never been phrased before, which is rare.

But here's the real danger: even if you manage to create viral content, the dynamics behind virality are inherently problematic. The algorithms that determine what goes viral are opaque black boxes. You don't know why one post takes off while another with similar potential doesn't. This uncertainty leads to desperate-looking behavior as you pump out content hoping something will stick.

I've seen how this desperation affects your existing audience. They notice when you're trying too hard to go viral, and it pushes away the very people who would follow you for your genuine work.

Let me explain what happens when a post goes viral. You get exposed to a massive temporary audience, and while that might sound great, it usually invites the wrong audience for the wrong reasons. People discover your content not because of its inherent quality but because their friend shared it. When they follow you and see your regular content, they're often disappointed because it lacks the specific quality that initially attracted them.

Take this example: if I were to post that "PHP is the perfect programming language for beginners because it has an ecosystem of Laravel and Symphony with decades of plugins and community support," and it went viral, what would happen? The majority of developers who see it wouldn't be PHP developers. They'd flood the comments arguing for their preferred languages, and suddenly, the valuable insight about PHP's accessibility for beginners would be lost in an ocean of contentious responses.

This is what I call the distortion effect of virality. Like an audio signal with too much gain, the meaning gets distorted by the noise around it. Your thoughtful contribution becomes buried under layers of misunderstanding and argument.

The most insidious part? While virality might boost your follower count and initial interactions, it's a short-term gain that almost guarantees long-term losses. The percentage of your audience that truly understands and values what you offer actually decreases with each viral post. Your signal-to-noise ratio gets worse, not better.

When you build an audience organically, people typically see you multiple times before engaging. They might notice your posts ten or fifteen times before recognizing your name, giving them context for who you are and what you represent. But viral exposure dumps thousands of first-time viewers onto your profile simultaneously. These people fill in the blanks about who you are with assumptions, often leading to misunderstandings and negative interactions.

This matters because audience strength comes from connections, not numbers. You can have tens of thousands of followers, but if they don't care about your message or engage meaningfully with your content, they might as well not be there at all.

The alternative? Focus on building a reliable, engaged audience that genuinely values your contributions. A smaller or medium-sized audience that consistently engages with your content is far more valuable than a massive following built through viral posts. This approach might not give you the dopamine hit of watching your follower count explode overnight, but it creates sustainable growth and meaningful relationships.

Virality isn't inherently bad when it happens naturally. But chasing it actively poisons your audience, muddies your message, and ultimately destroys value in your business. Sometimes, the best way to grow is to focus on being consistently valuable rather than occasionally viral.

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🎧 Listen to this on my podcast.​

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