Twitter really is the perfect platform for founders & developers
TL;DR
Twitter benefits for founders -
- Low maintenance = keeps your business as the main focus, not personal brand: you're a founder not an influencer
- 280 characters limit = Encourages you to articulate your thoughts and opinions better, audience expects small amounts
- Focus on text-based = Much more easier to create than videos or images, is also the primary format for developers, founders and writers among us.
- Nice, short and sporadic = I like writing blogs when I feel like it, twitter lets you still post value, thoughts, discoveries and progress with less time overhead.
- Build like-minded community = You still get to find like-minded individuals who are looking to hear your journey and learn from you!
My twitter https://twitter.com/jakublenski1 feel free to follow when you make your account!
My full discovery -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
I've never considered to build a personal brand, but I wanted an outlet to share my progress, lessons learnt as its always good to grow a community of like-minded individuals who can always give their opinion on your work.
Just like many of you, I already spend majority of my time working away at my business(es), alongside a full-time job, and university amongst other things. I'd say I'm pretty busy, but what's more important than being being too busy is spreading myself too thin, rendering all of my work towards projects not substantial.
This meant I needed some sort of low-maintenance platform where I could share my discoveries, thoughts and opinions, but still make sure my main focus was to work on my businesses. I didn't want to work more on my personal brand than my businesses - I'm a founder not an influencer, but I do want to build a community of like-minded individuals.
I still wanted to find a way to share my thoughts and progress. I already write a daily private change log which documents my progress and thoughts, so why not publicly write about some of that?
Here's what I tried:
I tried with making videos on YouTube. Boy was I in for a wake-up call. While the recording of the video may not take long, the editing sure does if you want it to a good standard. I realised that this method is way too much commitment which I do not have right now in order to stop spreading myself to thin.
I tried posting on Instagram. While Instagram is a great platform, I realised that the main focus of the platform were the images, and the descriptions were kind of a second thought. I'm looking to write about marketing discoveries, methodologies and problems that I've been working through on my businesses Ecom Pilot and Afiliatree, should I just post my text in image form or some sort of stock photo illustration that fits the topic? I realised that Instagram was also not for me.
I decided to write blogs and larger thoughts/ideas on Medium. I wanted to begin writing blog posts where I'm able to thoughtfully articulate my opinions and discoveries being a 20y/o technical founder. I didn't want the heavy commitment of doing it each week so I didn't want to host my own domain/website, rather just have somewhere to share my larger thoughts where people can still connect. I realised Medium was a great addition for when I'm feeling to write a bigger piece on a topic, but I also needed a platform which was low-maintenance where I could post regularly, still provide value and be time-efficient.
This is where I discovered Twitter. I haven't used twitter since 2013 (I used to be a squeaky 13 year old youtube kid playing minecraft who shared his videos on twitter), so I wasn't too familiar to how its progressed and developed since then. What I realised is that Twitter offers the perfect format for writers, developers and others who's main content comes in text, not images or videos.
I also realised it limits you to 280 characters - perfect for a busy person/founder that's looking to still bring value. It also encourages you to articulate your points in shorter ways which is good practice for a founder - your elevator pitch can always improve.
Hope this helps other founders that are in a similar position to me; you're not necessarily building in public, you're not really looking to mainly focus on building a personal brand, but you know that you have a few thoughts and words to share as you continue mastering your craft.
Thanks for reading, here's my twitter if you wanna reach out https://twitter.com/jakublenski1
