It is not about the fame or the money we can make. What we want is to have access to the pool of people we can truly help.
It is about knowing that we can have a direct impact on more (actually a lot more) people outside of our existing business or job.
That's my north star.
But even with the right mindset, it is a super duper difficult thing to find your 1st voice and positioning in the noisy world. "Who is my audience?" "What do they need?" "How can I make my 1st step?"
It is like having an identity crisis!
The story of Jeremy
I want to tell you about Jeremy Nguyen from Australia.
He was in your shoes — no niche, no followers, no idea how to approach this. He didn't even know what he could post.
His story is pretty epic. Last time we caught up, he said he was contracted by a well-known company (he couldn't tell me the name) for a big project (also couldn't tell me).
That's right.
Having a voice and an audience doesn't mean you need to sell knowledge (well, this is what I prefer because I love education). You will also get other opportunities coming at you.
Jeremy is a college professor and screenwriter for Disney+ shows. Now he has new titles too - A.I. educator and A.I. researcher.
But that wasn't possible in early 2023.
His early days
So what happened? How did Jeremy grow a community and establish thought leadership?
I remember meeting Jeremy on Twitter/X for the first time in late 2021 or early 2022. He was very interested in my program, Build in Public Mastery, but my live sessions were always at his 1am so he couldn't join.
All of a sudden in 2023, I saw an email. "Jeremy Nguyen just enrolled". WHAT? I was surprised. He said, "I don't want to wait anymore, Kevon!"
He was really struggling.
He didn't know how to leverage social media to build his audience. The things he posted were dry and forced. He tried writing and posting essays but it was all too time-consuming. He had wanted to learn to Build in Public to take a different approach.
When everything changed
After finishing Build in Public Mastery, he told me he was sitting in the hospital waiting for his first child to arrive. That same night, he was reading more and more about ChatGPT.
He was so enthusiastic about the topic because he felt that AI could really level up his screenwriting work (what if he could write more than Disney shows?)
Do you know what he did next?
He learned the tech joyfully and he shared what he was learning on Twitter/X.
In Build in Public Mastery, he learned SIB (Show-Involve-Build) to find out what the people around you need and build the right products for them. So he was partly sharing and growing his audience and partly assessing the opportunities in front of him.
It worked out so well! His posts were consistently getting 1,000+ likes and BOOM - in the blink of an eye, his audience on Twitter (X) got to 11,500 in October 2023. It was just a short few months!
With a growing audience and recognition, he is now featured in places as the A.I. go-to person. He is getting all sorts of opportunities these days — contracts and speaking gigs and more. You name it.
And what I love about him is that even though he has a large following now, he still embraces the "Involving" mentality in SIB by spending a lot of time conversing with everyone.
And you can see he is always asking more questions to learn more about his community.
This way he can build products to serve his audience and find his customers.
Discover you to discover others
This story was surprisingly similar to how I started in 2020 with no niche and 0 followers. Both Jeremy and I were learning new things and sharing them along the way. People got excited. audience grew. Then opportunities presented themselves.
The thing you need to understand is — you can't find your voice and positioning overnight.
You need to show up and share. With the right framework, you'll learn how to tell better stories and connect with your audience. Then things will start to emerge there.
if you want to unlock the same changes like Jeremy, take a look at Build in Public Mastery.
