Greg Isenberg - I looked like a loser...

I still remember the exact moment I realized I looked like a complete loser.

I had just published my 57th tweet to a deafening silence of 2 likes (my cousin and a high school friend).

My friend texted me: “Saw your tweet. Trying hard to be a thought leader, huh?” with the crying-laughing emoji 😂.

It stung because he wasn’t wrong. My content was trying way too hard. It was performative, filled with business platitudes and sounding smart-isms I thought would impress people. And almost nobody cared.

This is the part of building an audience nobody talks about, "the desert phase". The long, awkward stretch where your friends and family are watching you shout into the void, post after post, tweet after tweet, with almost no response.

And yeah, you're still figuring out who your niche is, what you want to talk about and what this whole building an audience thing means.

Your friends are probably thinking (and sometimes saying): “Who does he think he is?” “Why is she so desperate for attention?” “Does anyone actually care about this stuff?”

If you are building an audience on Instagram, you notice that you're getting no likes, but a bunch of shares/forwards, because people are talking about you.

This is the moment when most people give up. This post is about this moment and why it matters.

Here’s what I wish someone had told me then back when I was in the "desert phase". This awkward phase is worth it.

Your first 100 followers aren’t just an audience. They’re your first customers. Your beta testers. Your distribution channel in its infancy.

Every tweet and post adds to your distribution moat. With AI making product creation easier than ever, what will truly set your business apart is distribution, community, and taste. That's why it's worth continuing to build your audience, it might be the only defensible edge left.

@levelsio @levelsio 150,000 tweets 37 tweets per day every single day for 10+ years Distribution that I spent 1/3rd of my life to get! https://twitter.com/levelsio/status/1902662535511159001 @levelsio @levelsio "You're only succesful because you have followers" is the new cop out Meanwhile every single time you check out the site/app of people that say that, their thing doesn't load, SSL is broken, there's a sign up bug, it's unclear what it does, the interface is unusable, it just… https://x.com/i/web/status/1902662535511159001 https://twitter.com/ghostlexly/status/1902641197702619197 6:10 AM • Mar 20, 2025 13 Retweets 654 Likes Read 70 replies

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The companies that win in 2025 won’t be separated by product quality alone, they’ll be divided by customer acquisition costs. And nothing drives CAC to near-zero like an audience/community that actually cares what you have to say.

So yes, you’ll look like a loser for a while. Your friends might screenshot your posts and laugh. Your family will wonder if you’ve joined some strange internet cult.

But keep going. Because on the other side of that desert is an audience that doesn’t just consume your content, they trust you enough to try your product on day one.

The most powerful words in business aren’t “new and improved”, they’re “trusted and recommended.”

And trust doesn’t start the day you launch. It starts with every awkward, ignored post you make today.

Note:

I think you might enjoy the latest episode of the podcast:

How to use Ahref/Particl to come up with startup ideas like POPPI (sold to Pepsi for $1.95B) with Ashwinn: YouTube, Apple, Spotify​

It was a good one.

#1

Zach 🏴 @zachpogrob '4000 weeks' is by far the most insane framing for how short life is. 11:22 AM • Mar 19, 2025 11488 Retweets 253986 Likes Read 644 replies

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Time is ticking!

#2

Matt Mazzeo @Mazzeo Former CAA agent here. The @tbpn is ripping…Why? 1. Counter positioned - every other pod looks like a closet Zoom. They elevated the format. 2. Picked a platform & went all in 3. Co-opt most viral ppl & content 4. Consistent and high volume 5. Great chemistry 6. Great hair 8:47 PM • Mar 19, 2025 12 Retweets 496 Likes Read 40 replies

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There's a show that going viral on X right now called TBPN and this is the format. If you want to go viral in your niche, pay attention to this framework.

#3

Marc Lou @marc_louvion To make $1M, you need: - $50M in revenue with a grocery store - $20M in revenue with a restaurant - $10M in revenue with an e-commerce brand - $5M in revenue with a real estate agency - $3M in revenue with a mobile gaming app - $1.2M in revenue with a SaaS Revenue ≠ Profit 8:45 AM • Mar 19, 2025 131 Retweets 2423 Likes Read 131 replies

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A reminder that not all businesses are created equal.

#4

scott belsky @scottbelsky insanity is a moat 12:24 PM • Mar 14, 2025 117 Retweets 1114 Likes Read 44 replies

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I think he's right.

#5

The Boring Marketer @boringmarketer Easy AI use case for marketers: feed your data into Lovable/Bolt/etc. to make interactive presentations. You see a couple prompts in a workflow -- customers, clients, bosses see magic. 1:32 PM • Mar 17, 2025 7 Retweets 134 Likes Read 7 replies

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This is smart. Your best employees are going to be using AI like this.

Thank you for reading Greg's Letter. I hope you it got your creative juices flowing. You can forward this email to a friend that might benefit.

You might also enjoy joining our paid membership Startup Empire to accelerate your ideas and business. I'm doing an AMA there in 30 days.

Until next week.

Be well,

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