It took me a while to understand the importance and potential of this topic.
At first, I thought it would sound pretentious. That imposter syndrome, telling you “you don’t even know the subject perfectly yet, and you’re going to go and explain it to other people? Online? Are you sure you’re legitimate?”
It’s complicated at first, because until you have results, the importance of the process and its potential are hard to imagine. And yet there are so many advantages to building in public.
So the day Tanguy said to me “Thanks, mate, for suggesting that I do it”, it was really happy.
Let’s go back a minute to understand where it all started.
In 2021, I’m interested in Web3, and the underlying blockchain technology.
I’m hearing a lot about it and I want to understand how it works, what it’s for, what you can do with it, etc. Is it just another gadget, or is it really interesting?
So I read everything I can on the internet, I devour two books on the subject, I watch videos, only to realise after a few weeks, a few months of research, that it’s not a gadget, that it’s not ‘interesting’, it’s potentially revolutionary. We’re going to need it sooner than we think, and it’s going to change a lot of areas.
So there you go.
In 2022, I’m doing an apprenticeship in Paris, but that’s not what I want.
I want to work in Web3, one way or another.
I know that a lot of things in this field happen on Twitter, so I’ve decided to set up an account and write about it.
I don’t know how yet, but what have I got to lose?
A week after I created my account (I have 12 followers), an influencer with 20,000 followers asked me to join a community he was creating.
I’m ecstatic, “YES, of course!”
I joined the community.
Among the 50 members, 4 or 5 of us quickly formed a team to structure and develop the project. The community grew to 100 members, and my Twitter profile grew: 100, 200, 300, 500 followers after 6 months. I also became an ambassador for a DeFi project, Voltage Finance.
I finished my apprenticeship in August 2023, and after 3 months of searching, it was via Twitter that I found my first freelance job.
It’s also via Twitter that I’m now in contact with a content agency for new assignments.
In the middle of this adventure, I talk to Tanguy about the community, the contacts I’m making, what I’m learning and so on.
He decided to take the plunge and post on LinkedIn to document his Product Design adventure. It was thanks to his posts that one of his former teachers contacted him and he landed his first freelance assignment.
So, is it easy? No, of course not.
At the start, you don’t really know what you’re doing: is this right? is this the way to do it? am I on the right track?
You put in a lot of effort, you give your time and your energy without really knowing if it’s the right thing, without having any results right away that tell you “that’s good, keep going”.
And yet that’s what you have to do: build, publicly, and sometimes uncertainly.
You have to do it, at least for these four reasons:
• Discipline yourself and be consistent
Building in public is a personal challenge.
It means telling to yourself that you’re going to post content online in a field in which you may not yet be an expert.
It’s about talking about your beginnings, what you’ve learnt, your mistakes too, and doing it consistently.
You’re going to have to do it consistently, because unlike what you write privately in the back of your computer, this is in public. People are waiting to see what happens next.
It’s your image and your ability to be rigorous that are at stake.
This pressure is very healthy, because it pushes you to be regular and disciplined. This is where the interesting things start, because you’re going to learn a lot more than you think.
• Learn and improve
You’re going to learn about yourself. You’ll learn to accept your mistakes, and to talk about them.
You’re going to learn about the area that interests you, because it’s by talking about it and explaining what you’re learning that you realise what you really understand, or don’t understand. And you realise how much you didn’t actually really understand.
It’s by teaching that you realise whether you really understand a topic.
That’s when you have to overcome imposter syndrome.
• Overcoming imposter syndrome
You’re going to have to write about things you’ve just discovered.
Explain things you’ve just learned, as if you knew the subject better than others. Because no matter what your brain tells you, you do.
Because you know the subject better than you did yesterday, and lots of people are at exactly that level: where you were yesterday.
So that’s precisely what you have to do: explain to the you of yesterday, of a month ago, a year ago, the subject you’ve just learnt.
You have to explain as best you can, not just how it works, but what it’s for, how to find out about it, and what questions it’s raised for you.
That’s what we call adding value: explaining a subject as simply and quickly as possible so that people can understand in a few minutes the basics of what would have taken them hours to find on the internet themselves.
And you’re going to do it for free.
Why?
For something that’s even more valuable: your professional visibility, and the opportunities that will come with it.
• Getting yourself visible and attracting opportunities
It takes time and energy, and it’s sometimes frustrating, but that’s where the real value lies.
By creating, publicly, online, probably for a long time, your work will eventually be seen, and opportunities will eventually come your way.
Why isn’t this the case for most people?
Because they don’t do it regularly enough and they don’t do it for long enough.
Because it’s hard.
There’s a quote I really like from Alex Hormozi, an American entrepreneur who says “This is what hard feels like. This is why most people stop. This is why you can win.”
So it may sound like the American way, but it’s actually very true. There’s a reason why 90% of podcasts don’t make it past episode 3, and the other 90% don’t make it past episode 20.
By posting, regularly, and for a long time, you can develop a lot more visibility than you think, and have a lot more opportunities than you think.
As Orelsan so aptly put it, “si c’était si facile tout le monde le ferait” (if it was that easy, everyone would do it).
It’s far from easy, but it’s simple; all you have to do is be regular, and be regular for a long time, and you’ll see a lot of doors open up in front of you!
If you’re not sure of what you’re doing, you’re on the right track, and when they say you’re lucky, you’re already 80% of the way there.
