It’s time to start your content creator era

It can even be fun. I swear.

This post is brought to you by … my upcoming webinar with Superinterviews!
Grab your free seat.

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Okay, I made that screenshot up, but we’re not far from these kinds of job postings. If that scares you or makes you mad, it’s probably because you haven’t already invested in creator economy.

But it makes a lot of sense for companies. For two reasons:

1. Personal audiences are becoming a crucial distribution channel for companies in the trust-first growth era.

2. It is a public proof of agency and understanding of latest growth tactics.

First: They’re not exactly the same, but acquiring and engaging an audience has a lot in common with acquiring and engaging users or customers. Content creator skills translate a lot to quality marketing and growth. And lots of people say they understand how to build something, but how can you tell if they’re telling the truth? Ideally, you want to see the work… and someone who has been posting their perspective online for years gives you just that. Having a decent-sized audience means you’ve been creating content for long enough that there’s a very public record of how you approach things - any potential employer can go through and see (at least some of) the history of how they got there.

But that’s not all…

Given how essential personal content is for distribution these days, hiring someone with a big audience is practically bringing in a new distribution channel.

I’m seeing this right now

It’s happening at Lovable. If we want awareness about a big update, what do we do?

Big push through our PR agency? Nope.
Paid influencers? Sometimes.
Our company social? Meh.

Instead, we lean on people specifically to post about it, such as Anton (our CEO), Felix (one of our incredible designers), and me. The official Lovable account will repost what we’re sharing, and we’re building up a team of rising stars in the company who are sharing more and more - and that’s the point: Employees’ social followings are becoming a major asset for companies.

This is wild for me, because in past roles, my social visibility was viewed as a liability! Legal teams were terrified of me. ‘Oh no, what did you post now, can you please take that down?’

Now, accounts like mine are a major asset. It’s actually part of my job description to go out and talk on podcasts, do more posts on social.

Some of this is the stage and size of the company: startups naturally are more flexible and are more aggressive than the large enterprise companies that are more conservative and careful. So, if you’re at a big, old-school company, maybe this isn’t for you. But if you’re at a startup, this is a way to seriously boost your value to the company. Or, if you want to be at one, this could be the reason you get the job or not.

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On a related note: I’m teaming up with Superinterviews to break down how we actually hire for hypergrowth at Lovable and what top candidates do differently.

If you want a real shot, come learn how we think.

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But whatever your reason, it’s time to start paying attention. And just to be clear: I’m not talking about ‘building a personal brand’ - I’m talking about proving that you know how to build an audience. This is about being able to think and operate like a creator. Although personal brand does come along with it.

How to get started

Everyone has to begin somewhere. If you’re just jumping in, do this:

1. Pick a platform. Don’t try to do it across everything. Each platform has rules of engagement - techniques, norms, expectations, context. You can add platforms later, but don’t try to start off on multiple at once. For me: It was 100% Linkedin. And if you’re looking to talk about business-related topics, especially in growth or marketing, that’s where you should probably start, too. Why not a newsletter? I think newsletters are a perfect way to level up: You can do deeper dives on topics, create a repository for your insights, and (maybe most importantly) actually own your audience. But it’s a rough place to start - there’s no natural virality to newsletters and the feedback loop is much slower. When you’re trying to figure out the signal from the noise, start in a place that allows you to get reps.

2. Be unapologetically authentic. The point is that this is your audience! Not your company’s, not your brand’s. This is you. If you don’t use your own voice, it won’t work. If you try to make it feel super polished every time, it will always feel unnatural or yucky. Even if your audience is smaller because of how you’re communicating, that’s fine! You’ll find the people who really click with what you’re discussing.

3. Pick a specialty you want to talk about. Don’t chase the trends. Posting clickbait for the most viral meme or paraphrasing other people is short-term thinking. At the beginning, choose a lane and then stay in it as much as possible. Your specialty is your wedge. For me: I started with Product-Led Growth (PLG). This was one of the best decisions I made as a creator - staying focused on the topics where I had the most expertise, rather than taking the shotgun-pattern approach. Staying focused was good for readers (they knew what to expect) and good for me (I got better and better in that area, rather than always exploring new topics or fields).

4. Expand carefully. Don’t do this too early. After I’d spent years only talking about PLG, I moved on to Product-Led Sales (PLS), which was kind of my product-market fit expansion. Then… memes! After I’d covered my core, foundational frameworks, I used the humor as a different way to introduce the same concepts without getting stale. As the inescapable wave of AI crashed into everyone, I talked about how I thought that would impact Growth (I was anti-AI initially!). But since joining Lovable, I’m focusing on how companies and careers grow in the AI era, both at AI Native companies and traditional SaaS businesses. But all of these have layered on gradually. And still aren’t too far away from what I was originally known for.

5. Figure out something worth communicating. What can you share that’s interesting or provides value to the reader? One option is a contrarian viewpoint. It doesn’t have to be insane or shocking, but if you believe something different from what everyone else is saying, share it! And defend it. Make your case. My other go-to: A new framework. Human brains freakin’ love patterns. If you can say “Everyone is doing this” or “We’re all missing this,” it unlocks something in people’s brains. And one more: Share your singular opinion or personal experience. What did you go through or see or feel. This can be scary and make you feel vulnerable, but the goal is connecting with people and good content shows that there’s an actual human person on the other side of the screen.

6. Build a habit of collecting ideas. I hear “But I don’t know what to post about” a lot, and this mostly comes down to paying attention to your surroundings. For me, I have a rule that if I say something 3 times, I’m gonna post about it. Whether that’s a recurring question that keeps coming up, or something that I need to explain to several different people. This happened to me 3 times yesterday, so I made a meme about it:

The ‘Rule of 3’ helps my brain to recognize a pattern, which means there’s a chance it may resonate with other people. But whatever it is, get in the habit of either quickly creating posts based on things you’re seeing and experiencing, or setting up a document where you can record your ideas, so you can reference it when it’s time to sit down and post.

7. Engage. With. Comments. I put this toward the bottom of the list, but it’s actually my #1 tip. It’s crazy to me that we’re all using social media, but almost nobody uses the social part. Remember: You’re posting to get people’s reactions. If you don’t follow through, you won’t get an actual, engaged audience. Writing the post is 30% of the work… 70% of the work is responding to comments. Can be as simple as “Haha, funny” or “Agree to disagree”... but if you don’t acknowledge people who took time to read what you wrote, why should they keep coming back? You want conversations and dialogue, not a one-way rant or speech.

8. Don’t get caught up chasing impressions/likes. This is true for any social media (it’ll crush your soul), but as a creator, it’s dangerous in a different way. Pursuing popular approval will make you generalize your content to appeal to the masses, which drains you of your authenticity, your voice, and your perspective. Not only is it psychologically addicting, but the platforms have structured all of their notifications and analytics to incentivize you to play that game. Stay strong. Don’t dilute who you are. If you’re finding like-minded people and having meaningful conversations, you’re moving in the right direction.

Start now and just keep going

If this wasn’t already clear, I’ll spell it out: there’s no shortcut. Don’t trust anyone who tells you differently. If you look at my growth over the years, it’s been slow and steady.

Look at my LinkedIn new followers graph - it is slow and steady:

Or check out the growth of this Substack, it’s just a straight line. Nothing exponential here.

What real creators know is that the way to win is to keep showing up. The best tactics are all built around making it easy for you to do that. Figure out topics you want to talk about a lot, write in your authentic voice, and don’t worry if you’re not going viral - all of these things help you stay in it for the long-term.

It may feel intimidating to get started. Yep, it will take a while. But that’s a feature, not a bug – a real audience that cares about what you have to say is one of the only remaining distribution channels, exactly because it takes so long to build. This is a high-trust channel, and trust takes time.

So even though it would be great if you were already a creator… there’s no better time to start than now.

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Edited by Jonathan Yagel.

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