Twitter

200k Twitter followers on 2 tweets a month

Julian uses himself as proof that quality beats frequency: he grew to roughly 200,000 Twitter followers while tweeting only about twice a month, arguing high-quality output has far more staying power than constant posting.

“Like, if you look at like my Twitter account, I think I got to like 200,000 Twitter followers and I tweet once every 14 days, like twice a month. I literally, I literally send 2 tweets a month. Um, people aren't forgetting who I am, but if the quality is high, the staying power is so much better.”

Write your bio to justify why people should follow you

Julian's bio rule: write it to state what followers get from you plus the minimal social proof that qualifies you on that topic, instead of a stat-stuffed 'Forbes 30 Under 30, 2x founder' list that signals virtue but tells the reader nothing.

“So write your Twitter bio that justifies why you're differentiated and worth following. What do people get from following So for example, mine is something like, I deconstruct— I'm literally reading my bio right now, so it goes like this: I deconstruct how things work, like storytelling and critical thinking, and I share my learnings along the way. Okay, so you know what you're getting now.”

Steal thisRewrite your bio to answer 'what does the reader get from following me' plus just enough proof you're qualified; cut the resume stats.

Otis Elevator is worth almost as much as Twitter

The Otis elevator company, founded in 1853 in Yonkers, is a ~$40 billion public company on roughly $12 billion in revenue — nearly as valuable as Twitter at the time (~$55/share). A striking example of an old, durable, physical-product business.

“Otis, the elevator company. Yeah, Twitter had been hovering below that and then now it's at $55. $560 or something like that because the stock went up recently. But, um, basically Otis Elevator Company is worth almost as much as Twitter, which is insane.”

The 'micro SPAC': crowdfund an operator to buy a business

Shaan describes the micro SPAC he and Andrew ran: raise ~$85-100K from random Twitter investors into a shell, then buy a profitable Shopify app on MicroAcquire for an entrepreneur (Daniel) to operate and grow. He frames it as 'just add hustle' to an already-running business.

“And I called it at the time. I said, This is like when you go to buy like cake mix and it's like just add water. This is a like just add hustle. Here's a business. It's here's the code's already written, the business is already running, the revenue is already there, and all you need to do is grow it and you just need to add that hustle into it to grow this thing.”

Steal thisPool small checks to buy a profitable indie business and hand an operator the keys to grow it.

Release 1/10 as much content but make it 10x as good

Shaan's content strategy pivot away from generic Twitter threads: do far less, but make each piece dramatically better so it stands out from the crowd of copycats. Harder, but more fun and more differentiated.

“can I release 1/10 as much content but have it be 10 times as good? And because of that, stand out from the crowd and have more fun. Like, because I'm not like, constantly just doing quick hits. I'm like trying to do great work each time, which I think is harder, but more fun.”

Steal thisCut volume, raise quality 10x per piece, and let scarcity plus craft differentiate you from the thread-farm crowd.

Micro-SaaS: one-feature Twitter auto-DM tool built in 2 weeks

Sam pitches Birdflow.io: a founder abandoned a 3-year all-in-one product to build a tiny app in 2 weeks that auto-DMs everyone who follows you on Twitter. Charging $29, Sam compares it to how Buffer started.

“I love these little micro SaaS tools. I think it's so neat. This is exactly how Buffer got started and that's a multi-hundred million dollar business, right?”

Steal thisKill the bloated all-in-one product and ship a single-feature micro-SaaS that helps people win on a platform they already use.

Consistency beats quality: never miss a day on Twitter

Dan Held's biggest creator breakthrough: Twitter's relevancy engine drops you from followers' feeds if you stop posting, so quantity and daily consistency matter more than quality. He hasn't missed a day in 3 years.

“Consistency, I think, is the number one thing that people forget. I have not missed tweeting a day in 3 years. If you do, you lose your spot in the relevancy engine with Twitter.”

Steal thisPost every single day to stay in the platform's relevancy engine; consistency beats quality early on.

Consistency beats quality: never miss a day on Twitter

Dan Held's biggest creator breakthrough: Twitter's relevancy engine drops you from followers' feeds if you stop posting, so quantity and daily consistency matter more than quality. He hasn't missed a day in 3 years.

“Consistency, I think, is the number one thing that people forget. I have not missed tweeting a day in 3 years. If you do, you lose your spot in the relevancy engine with Twitter.”

Steal thisPost every single day to stay in the platform's relevancy engine; consistency beats quality early on.

The founder 'sweet spot': sold once, but not for enough to get lazy

Shaan's heuristic for backing a second-time founder: a prior exit big enough to prove competence, but small enough that they're still hungry. Said about Adam Spector, who'd sold his prior company to Twitter.

“You know, you did just enough that I don't think you're an idiot, but you didn't get rich enough where, uh, where I, I'm worried that you're going to be, you know, some lazy wannabe Steve Jobs visionary type for your next thing. It's like you're, you're hungrier than you were the first time and you're smarter than you were the first time too.”

Steal thisBack second-time founders whose first exit was solid but not life-changing - proven, still hungry.

90% of VC profits come from companies that started out as something else

Maples argues a startup isn't a company but the founders' insight and talent, citing that 90% of his fund's profits came from companies that started as something different: Lyft began as Zimride, Twitch as Justin.tv, Okta as Saasure, and Twitter nearly launched as Voicemail 2.0.

“But like Lyft started as Zimride, and Twitter, they couldn't decide whether to call it Voicemail 2.0 or TWTTR. Uh, uh, Twitch started as Justin.tv. Okta started as Sasher. And so like, what do you do with the fact that 90% of your profits come from things that started out different?”

Every app needs one of the seven deadly sins

Balaji relays Michael Moritz's framework that every breakout consumer app maps to a deadly sin: Tinder is lust, Twitter is wrath, Google is sloth, DoorDash is gluttony. The lesson: deliver a visceral, instantly explainable benefit ('a newsletter that pays you').

“you know, Moritz talks about this half-jokingly as, you know, every app needs one of the seven deadly sins, you know, like lust, greed, sloth, gluttony, wrath, pride, uh, I forget the other ones, right? Um, but it's things close, right? Tinder is lust, right? And Twitter is wrath.”

Steal thisHook users with one visceral, instantly explainable benefit (a deadly sin), not a long-term abstract promise.

Balaji stopped hiring from Harvard and MIT; he hires from Twitter

Balaji says he no longer hires from Stanford, Harvard, or MIT but from Twitter, because it's international and you can tell from someone's writing that they can think, communicate, and what their values and character are. A degree gives far less signal than a public feed.

“Another thing I've realized I don't hire actually from Stanford or Harvard or MIT or whatever anymore. You know where I hire from? Twitter. Me too. Okay. Because basically, uh, it's— first, it's international. Second is you can kind of tell that these folks can write.”

Steal thisSource hires from their public writing/feed where skills, values, and character show, not from their diploma.

Shaan raised a $4M/yr rolling fund from strangers who follow him

Shaan deliberately raised his AngelList rolling fund only from people he'd never met — Twitter followers and podcast listeners — instead of his Silicon Valley network. He hit his $1M target in roughly 3 days and grew it to $4M/year without a single pitch call.

“I'm going to only raise this from people I've never met who just follow me on either Twitter or from the podcast. And I tweeted out, I said, I'm going to try to raise $1 million in 21 days. And we're like, I think we crushed it in like 3 days. And we are now at $4 million a year on the rolling fund from people I never met. And I never did a phone call.”

Steal thisRaise from your trusted audience, not your network — a niche following converts to capital with zero pitch meetings.

Reverse-engineer companies to fast-forward experience

Shaan's research stack for studying companies: Wayback Machine for old homepages, TechCrunch sorted to a company's earliest mention, and Twitter advanced search to surface a person's most-liked old posts. The goal is to download data points fast because earning experience the slow way takes decades.

“And it's not that you can copy it, but it's just data points. It's a way to fast forward experience because experience the hard way is slow. It takes like decades to get good at things and to learn and to like, figure out what's normal, what's not, what's fast, what's slow, what's good, what's bad. And a better way to do it is to like download a whole bunch of data points quickly.”

Steal thisUse Wayback Machine, earliest-TechCrunch-mention, and Twitter advanced search to study how winners evolved and compress decades of experience.

The CEO Doc: timeline every founder's apprenticeship-to-hit arc

In 2013 Sam built a 'CEO Doc' mapping ~500 people's lives into three phases: apprenticeship, first hit, and self-actualization. Example: Jack Dorsey apprenticed as a taxi-dispatch nobody from 22-28, then started Twitter at 28 and hit big by 29. Averaging the ages shows what's possible and when.

“So I created— oh wait, is it not working? Um, I created this document where I would take— I think I had a list of 500 people And I would make timelines for each of their lives and I would say started their— it was broken into apprenticeships, first hit, and then the self-actualization mode.”

Steal thisBuild timelines of people you admire split into apprenticeship, first hit, and self-actualization to see what's realistic at your age.

Chris Sacca went all-in on Twitter before it was even his company

Shaan recounts Chris Sacca's playbook: after a small early check into what became Twitter, Sacca saw it was a winner and went all-in, showing up at the office, fundraising for a company he wasn't part of, and buying billions in stock pre-IPO to become a top shareholder.

“He quit his job, basically started showing up at the office every day being like, how are we going to make this thing grow? I want this thing to grow. He went and personally was fundraising for the company, even though he wasn't even a part of the company. But he was out there pitching investors to invest in Twitter, and then he ended up buying billions of dollars of Twitter stock before it went IPO”

Steal thisPlace small bets early, but when one clearly works, follow on hard and go all-in.

BitClout's growth hack: scrape Twitter and pre-fund influencer accounts

Shaan marvels at BitClout's aggressive growth design: they scraped Twitter profiles without permission, listed everyone's coins, raised $100M from top investors, and pre-loaded influencers' accounts with money (his had $55K) claimable only by tweeting the platform out.

“They're aggressive because They went and scraped Twitter and they put all of our profiles on their website and said, come buy their coin without anyone's permission. That took a level of aggression and sort of like willing to operate in the gray that most people wouldn't really have. And then the smart thing was they said, well, how do we make this network really valuable? Well, if we get really valuable people on it, how do we get really valuable people on it?”

An NFT as marketing spend: 4M impressions for the price of art

Jack Butcher reframes buying NFTs as a marketing expense: his 'NFT Explained' piece got ~4 million Twitter impressions, so buyers (often Ethereum whales spreading the gospel) are effectively paying for distribution and cultural velocity that would cost a fortune to buy outright.

“So the NFT Explained piece, which was by far the most expensive or the largest sale of the last few I've done, I think I got 4 million impressions on Twitter. So if you think about what it would cost you to buy 4 million impressions on Twitter, or if what it would cost you to develop something that has that level of resonance, I think it's easy to get distracted from that as, as like the three of us have distribution, but that is a valuable thing, right?”

Shaan had a $53K founder-reward bounty waiting in his BitClout account

Without ever opting in, Shaan found roughly $53,000-$60,000 worth of his own creator coin sitting in his pre-made BitClout account, claimable just by verifying his Twitter and tweeting about it.

“So I have a 60— like, last time I checked, this was a few days ago before several friends bought my coin. So I might have more now, but I had a $53,000 bounty just waiting for me. All I had to do was connect it to my Twitter account and tweet out, hey, I'm on BitCloud, you know, like, come buy my coin or whatever.”

Money likes: charge a micro-coin to like a creator's viral post

Shaan reimagines the like button as a 'money like': liking a post costs a tiny amount of that creator's coin, so when a post goes viral the creator earns instead of the platform capturing all the value. He cites his own Clubhouse tweet that 7 million people saw but earned him nothing.

“The last one is what they call money likes. So let's say, uh, like, let's reimagine the like button. So instead of just being able to smash like on everything, let's say that it costs a tiny amount of coin to like something. So for me putting out a good post, like let's say that Clubhouse thing I did that went viral today, all I got was fame. I didn't make any money off the fact that 7 million people saw that thing. Twitter made money, but I didn't make any money.”

Steal thisLet fans pay a micro-amount to engage with content so creators capture upside from virality, not just the platform.

Twitter is a hits business: 5 tweets took Shaan from 20K to 120K

Shaan says conventional advice (be consistent, hit singles) is wrong on Twitter. In his experience it was a handful of viral home runs — just 5 tweets — that grew him from 20K to 120K followers; everything else was the cost of doing business.

“you think it goes against like all the conventional good advice, which is just like, you know, be consistent, put out content all the time, and like, you know, try to like hit a bunch of singles. And like what I found, and I think, I don't know, you tell me if you found this too, which is like It's just like 5 tweets that grew me from 20K to 120K.”

Steal thisStop optimizing for daily consistency alone; swing for occasional home-run posts and treat the rest as the cost of doing business.

Removing checkout friction can 2-3x conversion

Sam explains that for Trends, forcing users off-platform to be sold and sign up caps conversion; cutting friction (e.g., stored cards, Apple Pay, in-app one-tap purchase like a native Twitter subscription) can lift conversion from ~1% to 3-4%, and Apple Pay users already convert at a much higher rate.

“And we know that removing a little bit of friction can increase the amount of users you get by 2 or 3 times. So you could have a 1% conversion rate, and then if you change just a few things, you can have a 3 or 4% conversion rate. And if Twitter can make this so my credit card is on file with them and I'm just doing this like, oh, I want this, pop up, done, got it, it's going to go through the roof. And I could tell you that the people who buy with Apple Pay convert at a much higher rate.”

Steal thisCut every step between intent and purchase - stored cards, Apple Pay, one-tap checkout - because removing friction can 2-3x conversion.

Find your red pill: the one truth only you can hand people

Andrew Finn (Wait But Why) told Shaan that to build an audience you need a 'red pill': the truth you've uncovered that people aren't hearing elsewhere, like Pomp hitching his wagon to 'Bitcoin is the way.' Shaan compares it to comedy, where a great joke is just a truth well told.

“What are you handing society that they're not hearing everywhere else? What's the truth that you know that you've uncovered? It's just like comedians. Comedians do the same. A funny joke is just a truth well told. I think that's the same thing for people who want to build an audience. You gotta figure out what is your red pill.”

Steal thisBefore building a following, identify the single contrarian truth you'll be known for repeating.

One tweet thread added ~8-9K followers each to the people on the list

Shaan reports that after his Twitter shoutout thread went viral, the average person he tagged gained 8,000-9,000 followers within 24 hours, with some going from 300 followers to 10,000.

“So I have people who had 300 followers before this that now have 10,000. What? So the average person that I tweeted out on this added 8 or 9,000 followers just from this thread in the following 24 hours.”

One Twitter thread drove 3,000 email subs and 4,000 followers

Shaan reports that a single Twitter thread sharing his favorite ideas drove 3,000 new email subscribers and 4,000 new Twitter followers.

“It drove 3,000 new email subscribers and 4,000 new Twitter followers, which is cool. Like, one Twitter thread can do that. So that was cool.”

How Chris Sacca turned a $25K Twitter bet into billions

Shaan recounts Chris Sacca angel-investing $25K into Ev Williams' startup that became Twitter, then aggressively buying employee shares whenever someone needed cash (e.g. to pay for a wedding), accumulating 10-15% of the company by IPO and becoming a billionaire.

“Anytime there was an opportunity to get shares in Twitter, he took it. Some employee is leaving the company, he's like, hey, I'll buy your shares. Somebody needed to pay for a wedding, he's like, cool, let me buy some of your shares and then you get some money for your wedding. And he over time accumulated this huge position in Twitter, like I think 10-15% of the company by the time it IPO'd, and it made him a billionaire because of how big of a position he had accumulated.”

Don't give yourself the reward before doing the hard thing

Barkl's morning system: don't touch your phone, Twitter, or WSJ until after the workout, making phone time the reward. If you take the reward (scrolling) first, you'll burn 30 minutes and never do the harder thing.

“But if you give yourself the reward first thing, then you never do the harder thing, which is like you could sit and scroll Twitter for half an hour and then you're like, oh shit, I was supposed to work out and you never do.”

Steal thisGate your dopamine reward (phone/social) behind the hard keystone habit (workout, reading) so you actually do the hard thing first.

Chris Sacca raised SPVs to buy secondary Twitter stock, ended up the top holder

Shaan describes how Sacca, believing the market had mispriced Twitter, raised single-deal special purpose vehicles to buy secondary stock from employees cashing out. By IPO he held roughly 8-10% of Twitter, a billion-dollar-plus stake, anchoring what Shaan calls the greatest early-stage fund ever.

“So he starts creating these SPVs, special purpose vehicles, which really just means it's a fund just for one deal. It's not like an ongoing investment fund where we trust you, Chris Sacca, to invest in 25 companies. It's like, "Hey, I have access to this Twitter deal. Let's buy some Twitter stock. I need to raise money to buy Twitter stock." He was just buying secondary.”

Steal thisSpot a mispriced winner, then raise single-deal SPVs to buy as much secondary stock as you can.

Twitter is the new Silicon Valley

Shaan argues that location no longer matters for building in tech because the network, conversations, ideas and even fundraising have all moved onto Twitter, which is now where the heart of the action lives.

“Silicon Valley is on Twitter. Like Silicon Valley moved to Twitter some number of years ago. And like San Francisco, you know, South Bay, New York, London, it doesn't matter. Twitter is where the heart of the action is. Actually, you can build a world-class network on Twitter. You can get access to great conversations. You can see ideas and get, you know, become a part of them. You can raise money through, you know, through the internet. Twitter is Silicon Valley.”

Steal thisBuild your network, deal flow, and fundraising on Twitter instead of relocating to a tech hub.

Zillion Beers: a cameraman built a $1.6M merch brand on Twitter in 10 days

Barstool cameraman Dana, told by Dave Portnoy to stop trying to make 'zillion beers' a thing, bet he could sell merch. The bet escalated to $1M in 5 days for a $100K prize — and he sold $1.6M of Zillion Beers merch in 10 days, almost entirely via Twitter, growing from ~1,000 to ~150,000 followers.

“So he created a brand essentially on the fly, Zillion Beers, and in 10 days sold $1.6 million in merch. And throughout this process, pretty much the, the way in which they sold merch was pretty much all Twitter. And so I was watching, like, as a marketing person, I was looking at— Dana went from having 1,000 followers on Twitter to whatever he has now, maybe 150,000 followers on Twitter in 10 days.”

Rebuild Product Hunt entirely in a no-code tool as a marketing stunt

Discussing no-code tools like Parabola and Voiceflow, the pair float rebuilding a full app — Airbnb, Twitter, or even Product Hunt itself with all its logic, database, upvoting and comments — using only no-code tools, which Vlad calls a good marketing idea.

“Like rebuild Product Hunt itself, right? In a no-code tool, right? Where you're, you're doing all the logic, all the database stuff, all the like visual components, all the kind of state changes, upvoting, comments. Sounds like a good marketing idea for you guys.”

Steal thisProve your no-code tool's ceiling by publicly rebuilding a famous app with it.

Pivoting was the highest-stress point — but Slack, Twitter, Instagram all pivoted

Iman calls the pivot to Incredible Health the highest-stress moment of her entrepreneurial journey, but argues pivoting should be acceptable since Slack, Twitter, Twitch, and Instagram were all pivots — you just have to be bold and take the leap.

“This was the highest stress point I've had in my entire entrepreneurial journey. Wow. Pivoting is hard, but the thing is, it should be, should be acceptable. A lot of massive companies today were pivots. Slack, Twitter, Twitch, Twitch, many, many, right? And so Instagram, Instagram, you just have to be bold. Like many things in entrepreneurship, you just have to be brave.”

Twitter drove 25% of her career success and LP money

Simpson credits at least 25% of her career success to Twitter, including landing LPs and investments directly from the platform. She favors tweetstorms over blogging because she'll actually do them rather than wait on a 'magnum opus'.

“I've had LPs from Twitter. I've had— investments come from Twitter. I've like, honestly, I probably, I could ascribe 25% of my career success at least to Twitter.”

Steal thisPublish your thesis publicly and consistently; ship tweetstorms instead of waiting for the perfect essay.

Build your business on Twitter by amplifying small wins

Shaan credits Hoover as one of the first to build a company on Twitter that had nothing to do with Twitter—taking nuggets like 'Ashton Kutcher just signed up' and amplifying them into a daily drumbeat of good news that pulled people in. He notes Lambda School's Austin Allred doing the same by spotlighting other people's wins.

“I've joked around with, with friends that I feel like you were the first guy to build your business on Twitter that had nothing to do with Twitter. And today,— in this other company we invested in, Lambda School, the founder, Austin Allred, he's doing the same thing. He shares every victory on Twitter and people love it.”

Steal thisBuild a public drumbeat of wins on Twitter—especially other people's wins—to grow a product unrelated to Twitter.

He left the office assuming the company was dead, then woke up to $400K in a day

When the Family Guy game got a weak App Store feature, Ali concluded the company was over, went home and slept. The next morning the stats showed $400,000 in revenue the prior day — it was working.

“I immediately go to look at our stats and I'm like, oh. We just generated $400,000 in revenue yesterday. So this is working. Holy fuck, this is actually working. We're winning. I run to the office and like rally the team and say, wow, this is working. We did it, guys.”