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How Build In Public Mastery brought my side-hustle dream back to life

TABLE OF CONTENTS

When I first decided to become a creator-entrepreneur in November 2022, I was absolutely PUMPED.

  • “I’m finally going to be an opinion leader!”
  • “I’d be working together with lots of clients in no time!”
  • “I’m going to make a hugely satisfying & fulfilling business out of this!”

These were the thoughts I had when I started my Twitter account.

Looking back at it now, I can’t help but feel how naïve I was back then.

Well, everyone can dream, right? 🤷🏽‍♂️

Reality vs Expectations

So here’s the situation:

  • I’m a productivity coach who’s building an online coaching business alongside a day-job
  • I want to establish my personal brand as the go-to person for productivity & entrepreneurship while juggling a 9-5
  • I want to use my skills & learnings from my personal experiences to help others like me

In the first 6 months of my creator journey, I voraciously consumed every single Twitter growth guide I could get my hands on and emulated the “best practices” of many large accounts.

What I thought would only take up 30-45 minutes of my time daily quickly ballooned into 4-5 hours of screen time on the social media app.

I started to stay up late to come up with new content to write, and made it a point to engage with 20-30 posts to “put myself out there”.

If I didn’t have a day job, this would have been a walk in the park.

But I did, and this crazy routine soon took a toll on me, both physically and mentally.

Sure enough, I got burnt out.

Burnout isn’t a pleasant experience; for me, it when I start feeling lots of stress, anxiety, and restlessness. I start to withdraw from things that were once interesting or exciting to me, and my head & eyelids will start to feel heavy.

On the edge

I almost gave up on my creator-solopreneur journey just after ~6 months into the game

❌ My account wasn't growing due to the Twitter nerf

❌ Creating content felt like a huge chore

❌ I felt like I was hard-selling myself

I noticed that I didn’t enjoy the process as much as I did anymore.

(And joy is an important value to me)

But I couldn't give up on my side-hustle goal.

Not yet,” I thought to myself. “It’s too early to give up now.

I needed to find a way to reframe my mindset and show up in a different way.

Something that felt more authentic, less “platitude-y”, and more conversational (like talking to a friend).

I reflected on this with 3 glasses of gin & tonic down, and put this idea out into the universe with my mind.

Then, it answered.

The Universe Hacked the Twitter Algorithm

After creating content in the productivity niche for a few months now, I noticed a few things about myself:

  1. I love creating routines for myself
  2. I enjoy helping disorganised people find order in chaos
  3. I hated using templates because it doesn't show my personality

Point 3 was the main source & trigger of my burnout

Fortunately, the universe sensed my dread and pushed Kevon's posts into my Twitter feed.

Something about his content spoke to me, and I decided to find out more about this other Asian dude who is on the same side of the world as me.

I dove deep into his content, especially his Definitive Guide to Building in Public.

Call me crazy, but I finished the 9-part mega-guide within 2.5 hours on a Tuesday evening.

He covered a lot of things in that guide, but what left an impression on me that evening was this:

It was an audience-building framework that relied on authentic, live, personal experience as opposed to templates, swipe files, and overused sales tactics.

I knew I was on to something here.

By the end of it, I knew I was going to jump on the next opportunity to learn from Kevon about this interesting audience

That opportunity came in the form of Kevon’s Build In Public Mastery course!

Jumping onto the #buildinpublic bandwagon

Over the course of 4 weeks, I absorbed everything I could from Kevon about his take on building in public.

And boy, did I learn A LOT.

My 3 main takeaways from the course are:

  • Building in public is not only a marketing strategy; it's about showing your personality through your work so like-minded people will be attracted to you
  • Building in public is relationship-building at scale to develop genuine relationships with your audience
  • Building in public ensures product-market fit because you involve your audience in every step of the development of the offer

Put together, the overall mindset shift for me was this:

The best way to grow as a creator-preneur is not to use fancy tactics or hacksIt's to build things people want and get them involved in the process.

This was the key to helping me become a more genuine & helpful creator on Twitter.

But did it actually change anything for me?

The answer to that is a big fat YES.

Building in Public works!

I already started to experiment with #buildinginpublic before the cohort began!

And it got me my first sale on Twitter!

It's not much, but it's a GREAT start, especially when I'm starting from nothing!

Next was the 30-days Build In Public Challenge that was part of the cohort.

During that period, my stagnant follower count finally saw growth!

(And this was during a time of huge uncertainty due to The Great Twitter Algo Nerf)

And more recently, I’m still seeing the impact of implementing Kevon’s framework

Do interesting things, share interesting stuff

Being a part of Kevon’s BIPM community is one of best things that happened in my journey to be a creator and entrepreneur so far.

Learning about the framework and implementing it now feels like riding a bicycle for the first time - you’ll never forget about it.

It has also enabled me to pivot business, launch my new offer, and made many new friends along the way.

So, if you’d like to…

✅ Sell without selling

✅ Build without bragging

✅ Grow without grovelling

Then be a part of Kevon’s “Build In Public Mastery” community today!

*Disclosure: When you sign up through the link above, I earn a commission at no extra cost to you.