When I was young, I mostly heard the elders say a proverb: "A patient dog eats the fattest bone." It's been a while since I have heard anyone say that proverb, and there is a reason for that. In the world we live in, being patient doesn't always work anymore, because the economics of innovation have changed. In earlier times, you could let an idea sit for years while people found out it was useful. Today, the ability to quickly test whether an idea has a market can be your competitive advantage. An idea is nothing right now, there are ideas everywhere. Whatever you plan to build, someone has built a similar version, and someone is also planning to build your version at the same minute you think your idea is special. The distance between ideas and execution is getting smaller every day. Two months ago, I had an idea of something to build, I was thinking of building it when WritePat gained enough traction. A day later I read a newsletter from someone talking about how he has started building a similar version of the idea I had. To move faster than everyone in your space, you need speed. How fast can you take an idea and make it into a finished product, because if you don't, someone else will. We are in an age where one person can build a full working product MVP in 48 hours, and you still think being patient will get you what you want, while others are going all in. Post it Notes: When Patience Was Still an Option In 1968, 3M scientist Spencer Silver was trying to develop a stronger adhesive. Instead, he created something almost useless for the original purpose: an adhesive made from tiny acrylic microspheres that could stick to a surface but also peel away easily. Silver knew the product was unusual. The problem was that he couldn't figure out what it was for. Then he decided to show the adhesive to people around 3M who were looking for applications. 3M describes it as a solution looking for a problem. Then came Art Fry. Fry was a 3M scientist who sang in a church choir. He was frustrated because the paper bookmarks in his hymnal kept falling out. So he remembered Silver's adhesive. His thought was: What if the adhesive could hold the bookmark in place but let him remove it without damaging the page? Fry began to experiment with coating paper with Silver's adhesive. Eventually, the team realized they weren't just making a better bookmark. They had created an entirely new way to attach temporary notes to things. They became the Post it notes with single or multiple colors you see in most offices today. The timeline it took: 1968: Silver discovers the adhesive Years: searching for a useful application 1974: Fry develops the adhesive backed note concept 1977: 3M test markets it as Press 'n Peel in four cities 1980: Post it Notes launch nationally in the U.S. So you're looking at roughly 12 years from the original discovery to the national launch. And even the first test wasn't an instant success. In the old world, Silver could've discovered something and spent years asking, "What can this become?" There wasn't an expectation that he needed to validate the idea with thousands of users next week, the organization could afford to explore and give it time. Waiting isn't dead, and Post it actually proves that patience can be valuable, but for a long time, innovation could afford to be slow. Post it Note because the technology needed time to find its application. In today's world, the cost of finding out whether an idea works has collapsed. You can publish an idea today, put it in front of thousands of people, measure the response, change it tomorrow, launch a product, collect feedback, and iterate. So the question has gone from: "Who has the best idea?" to "Who can find out what works fastest?" How Zara Built a System That Learns Fast Zara is known to be one of the fastest from idea to production when it comes to their product, especially clothes. Although most people see them as the company that makes clothes quickly, that's true, but it's not the deeper lesson here. Zara built a system that can make their entire loop faster than usual. Their loop goes from: Customer information designer prototype production store customer, and then it repeats the same sequence. While others are fighting to understand what is going on with their product, they build a system that makes it easier for the customer to make the decision. The process goes from customer first to customer last. Inditex says its stores and online channels analyze customer demands daily, design teams review collections based on the information they collected, its supply chain uses short production runs, and logistics gets new products into stores twice a week. That right there is the real moat, and that is what people who understand it are using to go from idea to product within a few weeks. If big companies can adapt such a strategy, you can as well. A concrete example in one case documented by The Wall Street Journal and reported by Fast Company: Zara developed a coat from concept to store in less than a month, such speed is unlikely in most of the fashion industry. The sequence was roughly estimated as follows: 5 days Designer developed the design 13 days Manufacturers produced 8,000 coats 24 hours The finished product traveled from Spain to New York The crazy part is that the customers could buy the coat in less than a month from the initial development process. But here is what makes it strategically interesting: Zara wasn't simply hiring people to work faster, based on the system they've built, that changed the architecture of the business. Zara is one of the fashion brands that shortened the distance between the customer and the factory. Traditional fashion companies often had to predict what their customers would want months in advance, but Zara tried to move in the opposite direction — why wait when you can know what your customers want and give it to them sooner. Its store managers are the ones listening to the customers, watching what people are doing and asking for, and sending that info to the headquarters. They understand what the customer wants and use an integrated manufacturing and logistics system to deliver it quickly. That is a huge difference from most brands: Other brands: Predict manufacture distribute hope Zara: Observe make distribute observe again Zara builds a business that learns fast from its customers, not one that builds and hopes its customers need them. A Patient Dog Eats Nothing The world that gave Post it Notes room to take 12 years is not the world we're building in now. That world rewarded patience because there was no way to know faster. Now there is. I was told "a patient dog eats the fattest bone" multiple times by elderly people, but that is not right anymore. Now, "A patient dog eats nothing." When you order food and they start taking more than 30 minutes without it being delivered, you start losing your patience. People don't want patience anymore, they want speed. That is the era we are in now. The world we're building now rewards a different kind of company, not necessarily the company with the best initial idea. It's the company that can test, learn, and adapt faster. People want to help, so let them. If you are building something, instead of just going from idea to production, ask people what they want and why they think this is better. Start a waitlist to see how many people join. In the process of them joining, do a quick survey of what they would prefer. When you get the information you want, do not wait for the perfect time because there would never be any. The perfect time is now. WritePat was my first customer based app, it took 3 weeks for the first MVP. I had no solid experience before then, but I knew that I needed to move faster, and that is what I did. Speed isn't about doing everything quickly, it's about reducing the time between action and learning. \ Owol. P.S. If you're sitting on an idea right now, start the waitlist before you build the product. That one step will tell you more than months of planning ever could.
If you have been on the internet for the longest, you would have seen a lot of productivity tools and ways to keep at it every day. This has happened to most of us, if not all of us. When you decided that enough is enough, you want to better your life. So you started by cleaning your apartment, probably because you've watched Limitless. Then you started watching YouTube videos to figure out how to stay productive, focus, and be consistent, but after a few hours you decided to download new tools because you believed that was what was needed to be consistent. You looked for the best Notion template that would magically make you consistent. While we all know how that story ends, anyway, I will finish it for you. Now that you have the new tools/apps that you believe will keep you consistent. The first day was great, you woke up energized. The second day was close to the first day's energy, but on the 10th day, you couldn't remember the name of the app you downloaded. It has been 4 days since you opened the tool you believe will keep you accountable. The story didn't end there, you are really smart, you know that, and you truly want to achieve the goals, but you know you can't do it without being consistent. You tried again and repeated the same thing for months. You start over and over again from the same spot every time, deleting and downloading new Notion templates or apps. This was my story until I got tired of this endless cycle of repeating the same spot every time. No one told me it would take 5 years of doing the same thing over and over every single day, without missing any day. I thought consistency and being productive every day were all about planning today and using that plan every day. I thought I would have the same day one energy for the whole year. But that wasn't the case. One thing I realized recently: it's not how good you are, it's how consistent you are at doing the same boring work every day and becoming better along the way. And one thing you need to stay consistent is a system. There are lots of systems out there that you can use, but in this letter, I will tell you about one of my systems, which I started using a year ago. The Conventional Belief I have heard people say, if you want to be consistent, build a checklist and follow it every day, that is it. I get the message they are trying to send across, but for some reason it always ends up in you forgetting the checklist, not because it's not doing the job required of it, you stopped because you created a checklist, not a system. The difference between a checklist and a checklist system is that just a checklist keeps you consistent from day one to day ten, but a checklist system gets you going even on day 100. I have used checklists for the longest, but I am not a fan. I don't know why, but I always stop using them after a few days, none have ever seen day 10. The checklist I created recently is on day 17, which is a record for me. But this is not just another to do list that you just mindlessly type out; it's a checklist system. I keep saying the word checklist system, what does that mean? It simply means it's a checklist + a system. Just another checklist is normally a simple list of things you want to do, and you check them off every day, but it is not just another checklist; it's a checklist that has the system in it that helps me to document, systemize, and analyze the process every day. I can say I am really good at creating systems, but the issue I have is sticking to that system for a very long period of time. I couldn't tell what was missing until recently. I had the idea of the ultimate way to use a checklist to keep me going and systems to get it done properly daily. Example: I do a lot of things every day, work wise, mostly in my second work section of the day, the mostly scattered work. So one of the things I recently started doing is sending 15 DMs across my social, one of the second work section checklist as something like "Substack: DM 5 people (engaged/active/didn't convert)". Before I have a system for this, but I will stop using such sooner rather than later, but now when i get to this checklist (DM 5 people), i click on it and it open up the system, and I find 5 prospect, one after the other and fill the data in the system, like (Name, profile link, Hook used, etc). You will also find about 8 checklists inside the (DM 5 people). Consistency is not about how strong you are, it's how strong your system is. Nobody accounts for the day your energy is low, your sleep, or something blows the whole plan beyond your time limit. The Two Checklist Versions You can't have the same energy or perfect day every day, that is why you should always prepare for the fact that things you didn't plan for happen. This is why most people start breaking the routine: because you didn't plan for the slow days, and when you fail one day, it seems like nothing, but when it becomes 6 days in a month, that is 72 days in a year. So what happens on days I feel like shit? Those days, my first 4 hours deepwork section leaks into my second section, days where I get an emergency. So I planned for such days. The Full Checklist. This is the full daily checklist, it contains more than 20+ checklists on certain days and fewer on others, because this list varies depending on the days, mostly weekends and weekdays. This checklist mostly takes me 4+ hours every day. The Light Version. So I created a light version of the same checklist. On the days I know I can't complete the full version, the light version is what I use, this mostly takes less than 90 minutes. I know if I can get this done, I would be better than doing nothing. The Trap: All or Nothing Thinking. Most of the time, the real issue is not that you can't do anything; it's that you have the mindset that is either all or nothing, but that shouldn't be the case. You should have a simple list you can do on days you just don't want to do anything. Last week Monday, I was working on a client project, which I had to deliver 24 hours later. When I was done working on the client project that morning, I tested their email template to make sure that everything was fine on all email clients, then realized some issues, and my morning session was over. So, that day I decided to use the light checklist version, and that was the first time I did that. When I was done with the 90 minute light version, the rest of the time was spent fixing the issues with the client work so it's ready before delivery. Every day won't go smoothly; some days will be rougher than others, but if you are ready for whatever type of day you have, you wouldn't have to worry about consistency. You do not have to have a perfect day every day, you just need the checklist system that can handle any day without breaking. Two rules I follow with the checklist: I can only pick the light version once a week. If I start, I need to finish (unless there is a situation I can't control). I can only change the system after 100 days of use. The brain tries to take you back to the safe areas, looking for every possible way to take you out of this boring list. That is why I created these three rules to keep myself from stopping me from doing or using the list every day. Last on the List It is good to have a list, but it is always great to check up on your list daily and weekly. You get locked in when you see the progress you have made. That is why I end my daily list with (Review/plan the next day) and a weekly item that repeats every Sunday (Log in the weekly metrics). These two checklist items are what most people's checklists lack. I use Notion for this. The only thing the checklist needs every day is me checking each day and filling in data. I do not have to think about what's next, I just have to do it. I repeat the same thing daily and weekly, so that's the checklist. Success only comes to those who are willing to do the boring task consistently for as long as it takes. Most people with the kind of growth you want didn't take a five day break in a month, instead, they stick to that boring task daily. That's how they got where they are. Believe me, they are not special, the only special thing about them is that they got the job done while you skipped. You do not need the perfect checklist system, you just need one that will keep you going even in the hardest time. Reply with your own "light day" version of whatever system you run I'm collecting these. \ Owol. P.S. Your light version doesn't have to be pretty. It just has to exist before you need it, not on the day everything falls apart.
If you have been juggling 3 jobs at the same time and you have not been successful at it, you are not lazy, you just need a better system. One problem most people have now is the ability to focus on one task for a long period of time. A job well done only comes from the ability to focus on one thing. Most can't focus for 15 minutes before they grab their phone or open their email to see if they're missing something. I understand it is hard, I know, but it has never been easier to move faster as well. We all have the same 24 hours a day. Some just know how to use theirs better than others, doesn't mean they work harder than you, just that they manage their energy and time more than you do. Meet Owol Destiny, yeah that's me, a very not successful one person business owner, who juggles 3 jobs at the same time and has only one four hour block to decide which one wins for the day. But how do I know which job to focus on for that day? That is the issue I have had for months, and I end up not getting things done. I've seen people's scattered work, multitasking, they call it. It doesn't work. You end up spending 3x the time than you should and getting things done poorly, or you end up procrastinating. I heard this from someone, and I think it's true: "without rules humans are no different from animals." A few rules that I have been using to get things done and move faster than most people. I'll share most of them in this letter and also something new I started using to move the needle daily. One Day, Four Hours, One Work This rule I call one for one. I know my energy is through the roof in the morning, so I do not want to waste that. That is why I do not use those first four hours for anything that doesn't move the needle. This is my focus block. The first four hours are only used for my most important tasks, like writing this newsletter, shipping WritePat, and working for clients. These are the most important tasks I can do in a day and call it a productive day. Not knowing your priority is why you think checking your email or opening social media should be the first thing you do. This rule helps me stay focused on one thing per day. I've tried doing more than one top priority task in a day, it ends up pushed to the next day, or I lose focus because I want to work on both at once. Now, I only work on one top priority task a day. My work is categorized into three: Client Day Content Day App Day I only do them in that order. If I have lots of client work that will take about 12 hours, I do it for 3 days straight. My body will focus on just client work. When I am done with client work, the next thing I focus on is content work for the week. This might take 8 hours, I split it into 2 days, and then I focus on app work. Sometimes it takes a week for me to batch and focus on just one type of work. This has been one of the best things I have been doing, and it has been making me move faster than I can imagine. This newsletter is the 5th I have written for myself this week alone. I have been focused on newsletters for the past 3 days, I'm into the 9th hour right now, and I have 5 newsletters already. By day 5 I will have 9 newsletters, which will cover the whole month. WritePat will then repurpose that into my social media posts for the month, and that will take me less than 30 minutes to get slotted into the calendar on WritePat. Then I can spend the rest of the month focusing on the rest of the work. Most solopreneurs try to touch everything every day: a little client work, a little content work, a little product work, and end up not moving an inch. It feels like you are being productive, but you are not. It feels like that is how real work is done, and I do not blame you. I thought so for a long time: opening 10 tabs at once, quickly checking Twitter, maybe, just maybe my followers have increased, or that person I messaged sent a reply. Scattered work sometimes feels balanced. It feels responsible. What if someone messages you but you didn't reply early? The truth is that you can't get anything big done that way. You need to prioritize your work and pick just one thing in the morning and get that done. Never 50/50/50 Someone once commented on my content on LinkedIn saying, what about 50/50 across a day. That split never really works for me, because when I am working on task A, my mind is already thinking about task B, which will make the result of task A poor. The effect will be less if they are in the same category. You can't juggle two things and get perfect results. I want to be able to get at least one thing well done in the morning, that is why I pick one, and sometimes I pick the same one for the whole week, yes I do that sometimes. It is efficient and helps me have the next week for something else entirely. When you change focus, part of your brain is still working on the last task. That is why if I am coding, I want to spend the four hours on just coding. I have never seen a successful person who likes to do multiple tasks in the morning, they always pick one and focus on that. My tasks go in a very strict order of who wins first, every time, so I never have to relitigate the decision under pressure. A hierarchy of work always gives better results than trying to balance your work. How the Hierarchy Works Client Day: This one always wins the first block. I won't be able to write the newsletter if I can't feed myself, so money in the door funds everything else. I got this wrong in the beginning, I thought doing content should be number one, but I later realized that I work more effectively when I do not have to worry about paying my house rent or eating. So for now, client work always comes first. Sometimes this might take more than 4 days a week, while sometimes it takes just one day, four hours a week, which is fine. But I always get it done first in the week so I can focus on the rest of the work. The client work is not non negotiable: sometimes when I get a new client project, I put it to next week, but client work will be the first work I do that week, starting on Monday. Content Day: This is a mechanism that compounds. It's second on my list. I can only work on this when I am done with client work for the week. Before, I only batched my social content with the amazing random slotting in WritePat, but now I also batch create my newsletter. Whenever I have an idea, I just write it in the scratchpad on WritePat, and when I am ready to batch content, I pick the ideas I want to use, outline them, and start writing each newsletter. One newsletter takes me within 2–3 hours, so I write about 3+ newsletters in 2 days. On Sundays, I spend like 30 minutes repurposing my newsletter into 4 social posts across platforms at once on WritePat and schedule them all with one click of a button. App Day: I intentionally place it at the end of everything else. It's a temptation for me, when I start working on this, I find it hard to stop. Probably because it's mine, so I have the freedom to build it the way I want. I write code as much as I love writing this newsletter, if not more. App work is a trap I try to avoid until I am done with the rest, because when I start doing app work, I hardly want to do anything else. This is the easiest way to justify skipping client work, which is exactly why it's ranked last, so when I'm done with everything else, I can focus on this and this alone. When the System Almost Failed A system sometimes needs you to be disciplined enough to do the right thing. Three weeks ago, I should have been working on client work. I woke up excited for a feature I wanted to ship for WritePat, so when I opened Notion to pick the work of the day, the Client Day was the first tab. Then I realized I had to do client work for that 4 hour block, the log made me confront the order before I could talk myself out of it. It's just rules. As long as I follow the rules, I always have a product day. Rule one states that I can never do anything other than Client Day if there is any task on that tab, and I can't work on App Day if there are tasks on Content Day. Rule two states that whenever I have anything I should work on that is not in the plan of the day: if it's urgent, I add it to the right category for the week, not that day. If it's not urgent, I add it to the right category for the coming week(s). Rule three I do two four hour session blocks in the day: four hours deep work first thing in the morning and four hours shallow work in the afternoon. The rule states I shouldn't work more than four hours in the morning. There is always tomorrow. I fill weeks' tabs ahead of time. This way, I do not wake up thinking of what to do, because I always default to App work, so making the plan 2–3 weeks ahead helps me get things done instead of just planning. We all know what to do, that hasn't been a problem for most of you. The issue isn't the priorities we want to pursue, but rather the system that ranks them and the rules that hold people accountable. You do not need more systems. You only need a system that holds you accountable and keeps you going for months. Some people keep changing systems and apps, thinking that is what they lack, but they need a simple system that holds up even in the hard times. Before you go to bed today, write your own three item cascade in order somewhere you'll see it before you open your laptop. Not a to do list. A hierarchy of how you want to work everything every day, and attach similar rules to them. You will notice you will start getting done the things you said you will do, instead of doing the ones you didn't plan to do. Most people don't lack priorities. They lack the courage to rank them. Do not be most people. I read every reply, sometimes I reply to some. Reply with your own cascade, I'll read every one. P.S. Write your three item cascade tonight: Client, Content, App, or whatever your version looks like, and reply with it. I want to see how you rank yours.
When you finish something big, a project, a goal, a milestone, the usual move is to reward yourself with something sweet. A car, clothes, a vacation. Makes sense. But what if there are other rewards you can give yourself that are better than material things? I have never been a fan of rewarding myself. I just buy things I need or want because it's just a normal thing to do. I have people saying rewarding themselves has helped them enjoy their work better, but for some reason (which I might need a doctor to check if something is wrong with me, haha), I do not get the same magic result as others, so I changed the way I reward myself. As I said, I didn't stop rewarding myself, I only changed the way I do it, and it's working really well for me. Instead of rewarding myself with things, I reward myself with more work. A lot of people will drop out of the letter after that line. Like what, you reward yourself with more work? Who does that? Well, apparently I do, and I think I have discovered a way to work without feeling like working. This doesn't mean I don't buy myself things, I just don't program my brain to do more work and be happy because I bought a new PS5. Before we jump into it, I just want you to know that I am writing this letter in my kitchen, with a black coffee with honey, and it has been fun here so far. Haha. Work Feels Like Work Yes, I just have to tell you this straight. I love work, yes, BUT not all work. As you can see, that was a very big but. I like writing, I can write this newsletter all day without feeling like I'm working or bored, I love coding, I love designing, and just building things. When doing these things, I hardly get tired, I need to force myself to stop. That being said, I also hate doing certain work, like posting on social, engaging with content, having meetings with clients, and marketing my product. These things I had to drag my feet every single time to do, and I do them because I need to do them, if I want people to pay for those things I like building. Being a strategist, I find the second type of work I mentioned boring and repetitive. I know people who like doing such work, they can do it as long as they want without finding it boring. Before you can turn your work into a reward, such work should be worth the reward itself. So what work is worth rewarding yourself with, then something you like doing? Everyone has a certain work or project that will make them skip breakfast. Start noticing work that you want to spend more time doing and the ones you can't wait to end. This is what most people hate about a 9 to 5 job. Most times, it's not because of your boss's sense of fashion, it's because of the type of work or projects assigned to you. You are not given the luxury of picking your project yourself. That is why most people can't wait to get home to reward themselves with TV, scrolling, eating junk food, and drinking alcohol. Some people subconsciously believe they should reward themselves with good or bad things depending on how enjoyable their work is. I do something different. I reward myself with the enjoyable work after doing the ones I don't enjoy, or when I get to a milestone. There is nothing more enjoyable than having access to the work I love doing. When I was young, if my mom wanted to give me and my siblings drugs (yes, I mean medically prescribed drugs), she would come with sweets, candies. The rule was, take the drug, swallow it, and get a candy. Can you smell what I am cooking, remember I said I am writing this in my kitchen. What I am smelling right now is yam catfish pepper soup. I gave myself the time to write this newsletter in the kitchen today, but I have to cook something, I have not given myself the time to prepare for a very long time. This is how I use rewards to get work done in real time. In Practice: Writepat I love the process of building Writepat.com. I love it so well that I can do it all year nonstop, but there is an issue: without marketing the app (remember that thing I don't like doing, yes, it's called marketing), I might starve for the whole year, and we don't want that. I hope you agree with me on that one. After building and launching Writepat, all I wanted to do was add more updates, fixes, and features. But I know that won't end and that is not the most important thing to do, so I made a decision that if I get two paid users in the app, I will be allowed to build those wonderful updates in Writepat. I don't like sending people this message: "Hi John, my name is Owol, even though you can see that in my handle. I noticed you have a newsletter. I built an app called Writepat, which helps you ease the process of writing your newsletter and converting it into a social post, with an auto post feature. Here is the link to try it out. Thanks." I sent out 5 daily, Monday to Friday, for the past 4 weeks. Even though I do not like doing such a task, I did it anyway because I know my reward is more enjoyable. I will tell you this for a fact: I will rather work on Writepat than go for a vacation. That is how enjoyable building it is to me. As good as that sounds, I have to grow my social media and also do marketing, if I don't want to be the only one using my product. By the time you will be reading this tomorrow, Saturday, I will be working on the rollout for Writepat, which will be my best yet. Work Feels Like a Reward A few days ago, I rewarded myself with a better graphics card for my PC. I gave myself a specific milestone: when I get there, the reward will be a graphics card. That pushed me to reach that milestone, and by doing that, I now have a more first rate computer to work with. You can reward yourself with whatever you like. But what I want my brain to know is that doing better means it has the opportunity to do more enjoyable work. Which is all I want to do. Find something that makes you enjoy working more. It might be anything for you. This is what works for me. You can reply to the newsletter if this resonates with you. I read every reply and also replied to some. Food is ready, now let me go enjoy my pepper soup. \ Owol P.S. The reward waiting on the other side of the work you hate is the work you love, what's yours?
Have you ever wondered why some people consistently do the right thing, every single time? Yes, there is a difference between being consistent and consistently doing the right things. I didn't know that such a little thing could make a huge difference between those who achieve their goals and those who don't. It comes down to this: how do you know the right things to focus on, and how do you do what needs to be done consistently? That's a question I can't answer for you, because what you do daily is different from what I do. But what I can do is tell you how I have been able to focus on working, while something else does the thinking. Thinking Isn't Doing I am a strategist, so I think a lot. Which is quite helpful when it comes to the creative or problem solving part, which is something I love doing. But sometimes I go overboard with thinking about what to do so much that I get mental fatigue. Before now, sometimes when it's time to write my newsletter, I will think about the topic, how I will deliver the first line, what the hook will look like, and one hour later, I am tired without writing a single line. As a human, the amygdala, a small, almond shaped structure deep in our brain, is primarily programmed for keeping us away from anything uncomfortable. Most of the time, those uncomfortable things are mostly the things you should be doing. When it's time for me to do something that will help my business but is boring, a part of me might be trying to procrastinate. What about I do it tomorrow, and instead of writing a newsletter immediately, why not watch a YouTube video to learn more about the topic, and then you realize you have spent two hours watching videos and nothing has been done yet. The study on the "reality threshold" says that brain scans show that imagining an action activates the same motor and sensory regions as physically doing it. I know that can be scary, but the study shows further that sometimes your brain can tell if you are thinking or you are doing by evaluating sensory feedback, like "actually seeing your hands typing," and recognizing your own intent to initiate the action. Now, I am happy that you are less freaked out because your brain can process the signs to know the difference between singing and thinking about writing a song. But what if this is a big IF. What if you are like me, who thinks about everything and anything? Yes, I move my hands when thinking most of the time. I might be moving around, touching things, moving my body, and moving my hands as if I am describing something to someone. Yes, thinking too much about something you want to do can severely stop your ability to actually do it, because the brain uses the same neural networks for both imagination and reality. Overthinking tricks your brain into a state of "false complacency" while simultaneously exhausting your mental resources. Why, after thinking too much about what you want to do, are you exhausted, and what you want to do is procrastinate? Because your brain is trying to let you know we have done enough for now, without knowing you did nothing. When you obsessively fantasize, plan, or visualize achieving a goal, your brain releases dopamine, the feel good reward chemical. That is something you should get after actually doing the work. Meet Mat I have been facing this for a while, the overthinking. I'm a strategist, which comes with thinking a lot, which is not a bad thing, which we will talk about later. About 30 days ago, I created an AI assistant because there are some things I don't want to be doing, the ones that make my brain protect me from doing the right thing at the right time. After all, some of those things are not comfortable, and the amygdala always tries to protect you from discomfort. As the brain's fear and safety center, it constantly assesses our environment for threats, triggering emotional discomfort or the "fight or flight" response to protect us from the unknown. I run a one person business, and I use AI in some ways that make my life easy. One of them is "Mat," my new AI assistant. Mat knows everything there is to know about me, even things my girlfriend doesn't know about me. Please don't tell her. The ultimate goal of Mat is to take me from point A to F in the next 280 days without stressing me out. This is how I programmed Mat to function. Think future, think past, think present. Mat has an EOD (end of day input), where I write about my day, answer some questions, and click some buttons. Mostly takes about a minute or two. This helps Mat learn more about me every day, and the more it knows about me, the more it knows what I should be working on. Here is the work Mat takes from my hands. Every morning at 3 am, Mat looks at yesterday's EOD, client projects, and personal projects, checks my refrigerator, pantry, and any other things needed. Then it plans my day, sets my to do list, and tells me what I should work on today with a timeline in minutes. It recommends what to eat for the day. At first, I thought, why should I have an AI to do such an important thing, deciding what I should work on? But frankly, it was one of the best decisions in 2026. All I do every day is work. I do little thinking about what to do, because I already have an assistant making such decisions, and I don't forget I have a call today, as I used to. Mat reminds me of every important thing. I can't ask for a better assistant. Thinking about what to do, why I need to do it, and if what I am doing is the right thing to do, these are some of the reasons I created Mat. It analyzes every data, what works and what does not, and why last week was better than this week. If I am late on a delivery, Mat increases the timeline and urgency. I plan to improve Mat soon to make it better at making decisions and connect it to some of the apps I use, like my calendar. That way, it has in depth knowledge about me. There's something I still want to do myself, like writing this newsletter, but I have been loving the fact that I do not think much about what to do. Instead, I just get things done. What Writepat Taught Me Getting things done instead of just thinking about them, that was the real lesson behind building writepat.com. Creating Writepat was more of a thinking thing for me than a doing thing, at first. When I was creating Writepat, I learned that you shouldn't let your thoughts go to waste. Every meaningful thought that came to mind about Writepat, I recorded or wrote down. The design process started with writing, what should be here, what should be there, why, and how. This is everything that made it easy for me to complete the app in 22 days. I wrote a lot during this period. I converted the most important writings and audios into one long audio that I listened to when I was walking 3 times a day for two days straight at 2x speed, because I want the understanding of what I want to build to be as clear as crystal. Then the thought day I gave everything to Claude for a well detailed breakdown, that was how the app building started. Note that I wasn't just thinking, I was working. There is a clear difference between thinking about recording a YouTube video and thinking + writing the script at the same time. Thinking should make it clear about starting the work, not scare you about starting the work. If you want to write a LinkedIn post, instead of thinking about every detail, like how to write the hook or CTA, why not write the hook of what you are already thinking? Writing this newsletter comes with a lot of thinking, but I cannot just think about writing the newsletter. I'm thinking + writing at the same time. This was what I learned when I was creating Writepat: the ability to think and do at the same time, instead of just thinking. When I'm thinking and doing at the same time, I immediately know if it's a waste of my time, or if I shouldn't be doing it right now, so I can stop and move to something better. We think about things we want to do in the future. You are thinking so hard about how you will grow your followers to 200k when you are at 2k, that is a waste of thought. The 80/20 of Thinking and Doing It all comes down to the 80/20 rule: make sure 80% of the time you are doing what needs to be done, and 20% for thinking. The thinking should always be a form of doing as well. You can think while you take a walk, and you can record what you are thinking about. I use AirPods, so sometimes if I really want to think, I press record on my phone before leaving the house and talk to myself on the way. I use an AI audio editing tool to remove the silence and background noise. Then at the last walk of the day, I listen to my thoughts, sometimes it's fun and therapeutic. What I do now is only think about what I am working on. I do not think about what I need to do next, I think about what I am currently doing. I do my best to get it done when it's time. If I need more thought into it, I think while I am doing it. Processing deep, looping thoughts requires massive amounts of glucose and mental energy. Use that energy for doing, especially in the morning, while your energy is high. P.S. I am planning to improve Mat. If you have thoughts on how an AI assistant like this could work better, reply and let me know. I read every response.
Sometimes running an online business feels like pushing a truck up a hill. The only thing some people can think about is what if the truck fails and runs over them? About three months ago, I woke up, got to my desk after doing my morning routine, and by noon, I was totally tired. I'd jumped from one task to the other without a rhythm behind it. If you feel the same way in the afternoon after you've done some major work, it's not because of the amount of work you've completed, it's because of the layout of the work. I used to always get tired in the afternoon, figuring out what happened, why I was tired. Now I stop working in the afternoon. Yeah, I'm just going to say that straight, I stop working in the afternoon. I realize that working all day doesn't really make me productive. It affects the next day. So I take breaks in the afternoon, and I work majorly in the morning. The 888 Rule When I split my work into two, I split my day into three. I work in the morning, I relax in the afternoon, and I sleep in the evening, 8 hours each. If you calculate that, that is 24 hours, which is what we have in a day. Yeah, I do not really work 8 hours every day. There are some days I work within 4 hours. There are some days I work within 6 hours. At most in a day, I do 8 hours, but most days it's 6 hours. Within these hours of work, I mainly just do the same thing every day because I've split my work into 2 blocks, and the first block is what I mostly repeat. The 2nd time block is dynamic, sometimes it might be different things, but the 1st time block is mostly the same thing. I wake up by 4:00 AM every day, and I've been doing that for more than a year now. It's been going very well. So in the morning, I just get my work done. Everything I have to do, I get it done in the morning. A typical successful day for me is getting all my work done by 12:00 PM. It has not always been like that. A few months ago, I always worked till night, sometimes still struggling to get things done by 4 or 6:00 PM. And I'm doing almost more than I used to do then, but I get it done before noon. In simple terms, there is no magic around this. Before, I used to wonder how people get their work done so quickly and efficiently. Now I know it's just about: first, knowing what you want to do. Second, knowing when you have to do it. Third, doing it. Those are the three steps. Why I majorly get my work done in the morning, and as focused as I can, is because I know in the afternoon I can have peace to myself, about 6 to 8 hours to do whatever I want. Having friends over or spending time with family is one of the reasons why I get my work done in the morning. After my morning routine, the first thing I do is write my newsletter, because I know that is the most important thing I can do in the day. If I'm done with that, I'm already satisfied with the day. The Two Block System I still remember when my work time used to be scattered all over the place, writing in the afternoon, going to the gym in the morning, and doing laundry at 6:00 AM. Everything was just scattered. I was used to doing the work as it came, just whenever I felt like doing it. I didn't have a rhythm in the way I worked. That is when I changed it. That is when I started getting more done. Now I split my work into two blocks. The first block is the promotion block, and the second block is the building block. I use the promotion block for things like writing my newsletter, writing content, reaching out to clients, managing my social media, and anything in that category. I use the building block for things like client projects and personal projects. Most of the time, I spend one to three hours on tasks in this category daily. The tasks in block one are mostly repeatable tasks I do every day. I just wake up in the morning and get to it. I start doing it in order. When I'm done within the first four hours of work in the morning, I take my lunch, and I take a walk. That is how I come back fully recharged for the next block. The next block mostly starts around 9:30 AM. This is when I focus on the project, client, or personal, and I make sure I get whatever I want done before 12:30 PM. If I'm not done by then, it moves to the next day. There is always a next day. That is what I've realized after years of having a one person business. What It Actually Means I'm not the kind of person who enjoys working all day, every day, as my life depends on it. I've tried it before, and it's never fulfilled me. I want to have time outside work. I want to have time with friends. I want to enjoy myself outside work every day. I have 24 hours in a day, we all do, and I don't want to spend my 24 hours glued to a screen. I want to be done by the end of the day, and I appreciate the fact that I did things I enjoy outside of work. When I started doing these splits and focused work, I thought it would slow down my work, or I wouldn't be able to get more done. But after tracking my work for the past few months, I've realized I've been getting more done every day, every week, more than I used to. I spend 90 minutes in the morning writing my newsletter, and I write newsletters for clients as well, one newsletter per morning. Before, I used to think it was a really major task. It took me about three days to complete a newsletter. Now it takes me 90 minutes in the morning. Nothing changed that much. The only thing I notice that changed is my focus. Now, when I start working, I won't stop until I'm done with a particular task. I just focus on that task without doing anything else. You can never outperform focused work. Right now, my 2 hour work beats my 8 hour work before. So doing less doesn't mean you are weak, on the contrary, it makes you faster. It makes you see clearly and focus. Currently, I call my work block the slow grind because right now I'm just slowly getting things done. I wake up, and I slowly go to the bathroom without trying to rush everything. I just focus on one task, get it done, take a break, drink water, come back, and continue working. That is how I work now, and I will encourage you to incorporate any of these into your own lifestyle. Splitting my day into three and my work into two has helped me go from not knowing what to do, just doing a lot of scattered work during the day, to focused work in the morning and having the afternoon to myself. Which is a very big thing in my life right now. If you stick to it for a year, two years, or 10 years from now, I know you would have gotten a lot done instead of working yourself to death every day, having back pains, and waking up in the morning feeling tired like you don't want to do this anymore. \ Owol P.S. Try running your day on the 888 split for one week, work in the morning, rest in the afternoon, sleep at night, and see if you get more done than you did before.
If you haven't made your $1,000/month yet, and you have been in the online space for a while, congratulations you are among the 90% of others online going through the same struggle, and the struggle is real. Last week, a follower of mine asked me a question that I wish I had asked when I started my personal brand. The question she asked was, "How can I make my first $1,000/m?" Then she said, "I tried selling a PDF digital product, and I have only had one buyer in 5 months, which is my friend." Let's call her 'Lia' for the sake of privacy. I was curious, so I asked Lia, "How many followers do you have now?" She said, "1400 followers." Immediately I heard that response, I knew what was wrong and what Lia needed to do to make her first $1,000/m, without losing her sanity. Lia was doing the right thing at the wrong time, and that is what a lot of creators are doing, thinking that what they need is one product that will make them $100k/m with 2,000 followers. I made the same mistake. I could still remember sometime last year when I just started building my personal brand, I thought it would be easy, that all I needed was some followers and a digital product. The dream was to get to $1,000 in the first month of launching any product. That wasn't the case at all. I created 3 digital products, and none of them made a dime. I was frustrated. I had told myself that when you start on LinkedIn within the first few months, you will get to $10,000/m, so what went wrong? Was I not posting enough? Not promoting my product enough? All these questions keep going through my head. The problem wasn't that I didn't know how to fight. I'm skilled, but the problem was that I brought a knife to a gun fight — never, ever, ever. I didn't realize this until it was 6 months later, when I decided to change my strategy. No one said it would be easy. Yes, it will be hard. If earning comes easy we will all be on a yacht. By the end of this letter, you will know what to do to make your first $1,000/m MRR. The Wrong Tool at the Wrong Time There are a lot of ways to make money online, but if you are not using the right tool or place, you might not earn anything. Early last year, when I started posting on LinkedIn, I was sold a dream that within 6 months I would get to $10,000/m. Did it come through? It's a big No. What really happened was that I spent time building a product for audiences I had not built, and the ones I had did not trust me enough to pay for my PDF. Yes, I brought a pocket knife to a gun fight, and I ended up earning less than $1,000 in 6 months. Then I earned $15,000 the next 6 months from my personal brand. It was a great achievement for me, because I have multiple ways I make money, but this is the fastest one for me. If you have less than 10k followers on your social media, your core product shouldn't be digital, instead, you should offer a service. That was what I did. I already had email marketing and newsletter setup skills, so I sold that to clients. Don't fall into the trap being preached online, here and there, about how they are making money selling an ebook with no audience. Deep down, we all know that it is a shortcut that leads to a waste of time, and being broke along the way. What I told Lia was to offer high value services. Here is why: For a digital PDF at $15, you need 67 purchases to get $1,000/m. For a service at $500, you need 2 paid clients to get $1,000/m. The second one is faster and easier. All you need is two clients a month. You might have started thinking about how to get these clients. No worries, we'll talk about it next. Two Ways to Get Clients There are two ways to go about this. The first is going into people's DMs to tell them you can help, reduce their workload on a particular thing, or help them make more money. The other way is to post about what you do in a very non annoying way. Last year, in June, I decided to change my strategy to reach out to prospects on LinkedIn and other platforms. I was sending 20 new DMs daily, but after 4 weeks, I couldn't keep up. It was another job on top of posting, but I stuck to it for as long as I could. From those 20 DMs daily I did for 4 weeks, I got 2 clients, one was an email system setup, and the other was to manage a LinkedIn page. Both paid me $3,200 in total for 3 months. That was how I got my first $1,000/m from my personal brand. You can do the same by reaching out to 20+ people every day. Make sure everyone you reach out to really needs your service. I was reaching out to creators about how to have an audience to sell to, and creators who have a newsletter. I know I can make it better and make them more money. Wait, yes, I used the word 'was', I stopped doing the DMs. You guessed right, I'm not the DM daily kind of person. I'm okay with just posting, but now I post to turn readers into clients and customers. When I was doing the DM thing, two people reached out to me, saying they would like to work with me through my posts. That was when I saw the beauty in that, so I used it. I started posting more, and I got more reach. I was posting about my work less annoyingly and also posting about anything I am interested in. That way, my posts do not get too boring. Now I can stay focused on getting better at one thing: creating content. Now it's easier for me to post content. I use writepat.com to write and convert my newsletters into content for Twitter, LinkedIn, and Substack. The content auto publishes as scheduled. Last week, I made an update to the LinkedIn post converter, and the result was a post that gets 90%–100% in AI detection, which was like, wow, it was very hard for an AI generated content to get that good. Do not add a link to your post, the algorithm doesn't like that. For my LinkedIn, I only add links in the comments. If You Don't Have a Personal Brand Yet Here is where I started, as a freelancer on Upwork. This literally changed my life. A few years ago, I didn't have a personal brand, so all I did was send proposals on Upwork to get a client, and it worked. I got my first client for $20 for 5 hours of work. It wasn't a great amount of money, but I was happy because someone who hadn't seen my work paid me for my skills. So if you do not have a personal brand that is paying you yet, use any freelance platform, there are a lot of them out there, just pick one. Fiverr, Upwork, Freelancer, etc. Just pick one, work with it for a while to see how much you like it, and if you do, then keep going. I picked Upwork, and I rode on that for as long as I could. With a freelance platform, you do not have to look for clients they come to you. I have earned more than $60k in total from freelancing, so I think it's worth giving it a try. Until other earning parts I have built are sufficiently bringing in money, I will still stick to freelancing, or you can call it a one person business. I am tired of seeing people stop because they think the only ways to make money from their personal brand are by creating a course or a digital product, pushing themselves so hard that they burn out and think everything is a scam. The course you bought won't tell you that you need more than 50k followers for your digital product to sell. Someone tells you they made $20k/m from their 70k followers, and you want to do the same thing with your 5k followers. We all want to live the dream, but you need to wake up to do that. What Earning Your First $1,000/m Actually Feels Like I was getting out of bed, it was Feb 21, 2023. I went to the kitchen to make my coffee, coffee in hand. I head to my workstation, turn on my PC, and open my payment dashboard. I stood up immediately. What I saw was my first $1,000/m earning. I don't know how to describe the feeling, but it was one of the best feelings I've had about money to date. I have earned more monthly since then, but the feeling of earning your first thousand is different. Maybe I will get the same feeling when I get to $10k/m, but I am still holding on to the $1,000/m feeling because I haven't gotten anything close to that feeling about earnings since then. You may not feel the same way, but for me, coming from nothing, where the people around me hardly earn half of that a month, it means a lot to me then and now. I came from nothing. I could still remember when the best money I earned was $1 a day. I could still remember when I had to eat once a day just to have something to eat the next day. So when I tell you I had this unmatched feeling when I earned that first $1,000/m, I meant it. Now, I'm someone who could sleep for 8 hours without the worry that I will starve to death. Now, I'm someone who could pay for courses and tools/apps (I used to look for the free tools/apps initially). Earning my first $1,000/m shows me that I can do more than I thought. I remember when earning $200 was the goal. Now the main goal is never to go broke again, and I know a lot of creators out there are broke. I'm not the hardest working person, but I will do what it takes to never go broke again. If you haven't earned your first $1,000/m online, here is what I would do if I were you. If you will take one thing out of this letter, it is volume: the more you do something, the better you become. If you have a personal brand with less than 20k followers, here is what I will do. I pick a skill I am good at, niche down as much as I can, update my profile so visitors immediately know what I do and who I help, and include a CTA in my profile. Then I pick days I will post, batch my posts every weekend, engage with other creators, schedule my posts, and add a CTA in the post comments. 20% of my weekly posts will be based on promotion in ways that don't make it look like a promotion. I can reach out to 20+ people every weekday. It might not seem like a lot daily, but that is 400 a month and 4,800 a year. With 400, you will get 2 4 clients. If you do not have a personal brand, or for some reason you don't want one, pick a freelance platform, update your profile, and reach out to a prospect for work. Reply to this email if you need help with this topic or other topics I have spoken about. Even if I can't reply to all replies, note that I read everything. \ Owol P.S. If you don't have something to eat, you can't create a digital product and wait your first goal should be surviving, and then you can scale from there. Start with your skill, find two clients, and earn that first thousand. Everything else comes after.
I Couldn’t Stay Consistent. So I Built the Tool That Fixed That. This is not a productivity letter. This is a story about burning out, rebuilding from scratch, and accidentally creating something I couldn’t find anywhere else. If you write a newsletter and struggle to stay consistent on social, keep reading. This one is for you. The Problem Nobody Talks About Everyone tells you to be consistent. Nobody tells you how exhausting it is to actually do it, especially when you’re a writer with client work, side projects, and a life that doesn’t pause for your content calendar. I started posting on LinkedIn and Twitter because I knew I needed to build an audience. I was writing. I had ideas. I had things to say. But writing a newsletter and then reformatting everything for LinkedIn, then Twitter, then Substack, that’s not one job. That’s four. At some point, I stopped enjoying it. I started dreading it. I would skip days just to escape the process. And when you skip days, the guilt piles up, which makes it harder to come back, which makes you skip more days. I wasn’t lazy. I was running a broken system. The 4 Tool Setup That Almost Worked I did what most writers do. I went looking for tools. After a rabbit hole that lasted longer than I’d like to admit, I landed on four: Notion to write, AI to convert, Make to automate, and Typefully to schedule. It worked. For a while. But every week, I was maintaining four tools, paying for three of them, and still spending more time managing the pipeline than actually writing. The tools were supposed to give me time back. Instead, they became a second job on top of the first one. Then, in January this year, I started on Substack. One month. 190 subscribers. People were reading. People were responding. But behind the scenes, I was manually copying notes from Notion into Substack every single time I wanted to post. When a busy week hit, I’d forget. Then I’d feel guilty. Then I’d avoid it. You know how that story ends. The Chrome Extension That Wasn’t Enough I started building in February. First, a Chrome extension to auto publish Substack notes. It worked, but only when my computer was on and Chrome was open. Every other tool I found had the same limitation. They all needed an extension running in the background. Your computer had to be awake. You had to be present. That’s not consistency. That’s just a fancier version of the same problem. I scrapped it. Started over. A full web app this time. Built from scratch. No extensions. No dependencies on your browser or your machine being on. By March, it could publish to LinkedIn, Twitter, and Substack automatically, from any browser, even when your computer is off. I called it Writepat. I built the first version for myself. A week later, I made it public. What a Morning Looks Like Now I wake up around 4 AM. 20 minute morning routine. Then I open my laptop, go to Writepat, and write. That’s it. I write my newsletter for 90 minutes every morning. That’s my content pillar, the one thing I protect above everything else. While I’m writing, I’m not thinking about what I’ll post on Twitter or what my LinkedIn caption will be. I’m just writing. Deeply. Without distraction. Writepat has a built in research tool on the side. If I need to look something up while writing, I don’t leave the page. I don’t open a new tab. I don’t fall into a YouTube spiral. I research, I write, I finish. On Sundays, I spend about 30 minutes getting ready for the week. I open the newsletter I wrote, hit convert, and Writepat generates platform specific posts for X, LinkedIn, and Substack. Not copies of my newsletter. Not the same text pasted three times. Posts that are written for each platform, the right length, the right tone, the right format. Then I use the smart scheduler. It slots everything into my pre set posting times automatically, randomising across weeks so it doesn’t look robotic. That’s the whole Sunday routine. 30 minutes. The Sunday That Changed How I Think About Consistency Three days ago, Sunday, March 22, I decided to make up for the weeks I wasn’t consistent. I used Writepat’s Import from URL feature. I pasted the links to 3 of my past newsletters. Writepat pulled the content in automatically. Then I converted each one: 70 Substack notes 70 Tweets 4 LinkedIn posts That’s 144 posts per newsletter. Three newsletters. 432 posts. Plus 2 LinkedIn posts and 16 Substack notes I already had in drafts. Total: 450 posts scheduled. In 30 minutes. Posts going out for the next several weeks. Automatically. Without me touching anything. I’m not saying this to impress you. I’m saying this because I spent months feeling guilty about not being consistent, and it turns out the problem was never my discipline. It was my system. What Writepat Actually Does, Step by Step Let me walk you through the tool properly so you know exactly what you’re getting. Step 1: Write your newsletter. Open Writepat and start writing. Clean editor. No distractions. Built in research tool on the side so you never have to leave the page. This is your content pillar, the one thing you do manually, deeply, and with full focus. Step 2: Convert to platform posts. When you’re done, hit convert. Writepat uses Claude AI to generate: Twitter/X posts (single posts or full threads) LinkedIn posts (written in LinkedIn’s style, not just copied text) Substack notes (short, punchy, native to the platform) You can also import past newsletters by URL and convert those, too. Step 3: Edit and customise. You get a full compose editor for each platform. Adjust tone, length, add images, split into threads. The AI gives you a strong starting point, you make it yours. Step 4: Schedule. Use the smart queue. Set your preferred posting times once, and Writepat fills those slots automatically every time you schedule content. Or pick specific dates and times manually. Your choice. Step 5: Auto publish Writepat publishes to X, LinkedIn, and Substack automatically. Not when you’re online. Not when Chrome is open. Any time. Any device. Computer off. This is the part that no other tool does the same way. Every competitor I found for Substack auto publishing needs a Chrome extension running. Writepat doesn’t. It publishes directly from the server. What Else Is in There A few things worth mentioning that I use regularly: Scratchpad , a space to dump ideas as they come. I have a note open next to my writing some mornings. When something crosses my mind that’s not for this newsletter, I throw it in the scratchpad. On Sundays, I come back, pick one, and turn it into a newsletter. Ideas , a structured idea bank. Different from scratchpad. This is where the ideas I want to develop properly live. Analytics , see what’s performing across platforms. Impressions, likes, engagement. It pulls data so you can see which of your posts actually landed. Evergreen Recycler , automatically surfaces your best performing posts after a cooldown period so they can be scheduled again. Your best content works twice. Split & Schedule , write one long piece, drop a delimiter like in between posts, and Writepat splits it into multiple posts and schedules them separately across your queue. Good for long threads or drip content. Voice Profiles , tell Writepat how you write. Tone, style, topics to avoid, and phrases you use. The AI uses this when converting your newsletter so the output sounds like you, not like everyone else. Who This Is For Writepat is built for newsletter writers who want to focus on their long form content and let the tool handle social distribution. If your content pillar is your newsletter, whether it goes out on Substack, Kit, Beehiiv, or anywhere else, Writepat takes everything you’ve already written and turns it into weeks of social content automatically. You don’t need a team. You don’t need four tools. You don’t need to be online at 9 AM to hit publish. You just need to write your newsletter. The Founding Member Offer Writepat went live five days ago. For the first 50 people who become paying members in the next 30 days, 50% off, forever. Not just your first month. Every month. Every renewal. 50% off for as long as you use Writepat with subscription cancellation. There’s also a 7 day free trial, so you can see if it’s made for you before paying anything. The founding member discount is capped at 50 people. When they’re gone, the price goes back to full. Use code FOUNDING50 at checkout. → Start your free 7 day trial at writepat.com One Last Thing I built Writepat because I couldn’t find it. Not because I wanted to build a SaaS. Not because I saw a market opportunity. Because I was a newsletter writer who needed a system that didn’t exist, and I got tired of waiting for someone else to build it. If that story sounds familiar, if you’ve been duct taping tools together, skipping posting days, feeling guilty about inconsistency, this was built for you. Come try it. Tell me what you think. I read every reply. \ Owol Founder, Writepat writepat.com
I Couldn’t Stay Consistent. So I Built the Tool That Fixed That. This is not a productivity letter. This is a story about burning out, rebuilding from scratch, and accidentally creating something I couldn’t find anywhere else. If you write a newsletter and struggle to stay consistent on social, keep reading. This one is for you. The Problem Nobody Talks About Everyone tells you to be consistent. Nobody tells you how exhausting it is to actually do it, especially when you’re a writer with client work, side projects, and a life that doesn’t pause for your content calendar. I started posting on LinkedIn and Twitter because I knew I needed to build an audience. I was writing. I had ideas. I had things to say. But writing a newsletter and then reformatting everything for LinkedIn, then Twitter, then Substack, that’s not one job. That’s four. At some point, I stopped enjoying it. I started dreading it. I would skip days just to escape the process. And when you skip days, the guilt piles up, which makes it harder to come back, which makes you skip more days. I wasn’t lazy. I was running a broken system. The 4 Tool Setup That Almost Worked I did what most writers do. I went looking for tools. After a rabbit hole that lasted longer than I’d like to admit, I landed on four: Notion to write, AI to convert, Make to automate, and Typefully to schedule. It worked. For a while. But every week, I was maintaining four tools, paying for three of them, and still spending more time managing the pipeline than actually writing. The tools were supposed to give me time back. Instead, they became a second job on top of the first one. Then, in January this year, I started on Substack. One month. 190 subscribers. People were reading. People were responding. But behind the scenes, I was manually copying notes from Notion into Substack every single time I wanted to post. When a busy week hit, I’d forget. Then I’d feel guilty. Then I’d avoid it. You know how that story ends. The Chrome Extension That Wasn’t Enough I started building in February. First, a Chrome extension to auto publish Substack notes. It worked, but only when my computer was on and Chrome was open. Every other tool I found had the same limitation. They all needed an extension running in the background. Your computer had to be awake. You had to be present. That’s not consistency. That’s just a fancier version of the same problem. I scrapped it. Started over. A full web app this time. Built from scratch. No extensions. No dependencies on your browser or your machine being on. By March, it could publish to LinkedIn, Twitter, and Substack automatically, from any browser, even when your computer is off. I called it Writepat. I built the first version for myself. A week later, I made it public. What a Morning Looks Like Now I wake up around 4 AM. 20 minute morning routine. Then I open my laptop, go to Writepat, and write. That’s it. I write my newsletter for 90 minutes every morning. That’s my content pillar, the one thing I protect above everything else. While I’m writing, I’m not thinking about what I’ll post on Twitter or what my LinkedIn caption will be. I’m just writing. Deeply. Without distraction. Writepat has a built in research tool on the side. If I need to look something up while writing, I don’t leave the page. I don’t open a new tab. I don’t fall into a YouTube spiral. I research, I write, I finish. On Sundays, I spend about 30 minutes getting ready for the week. I open the newsletter I wrote, hit convert, and Writepat generates platform specific posts for X, LinkedIn, and Substack. Not copies of my newsletter. Not the same text pasted three times. Posts that are written for each platform, the right length, the right tone, the right format. Then I use the smart scheduler. It slots everything into my pre set posting times automatically, randomising across weeks so it doesn’t look robotic. That’s the whole Sunday routine. 30 minutes. The Sunday That Changed How I Think About Consistency Three days ago, Sunday, March 22, I decided to make up for the weeks I wasn’t consistent. I used Writepat’s Import from URL feature. I pasted the links to 3 of my past newsletters. Writepat pulled the content in automatically. Then I converted each one: 70 Substack notes 70 Tweets 4 LinkedIn posts That’s 144 posts per newsletter. Three newsletters. 432 posts. Plus 2 LinkedIn posts and 16 Substack notes I already had in drafts. Total: 450 posts scheduled. In 30 minutes. Posts going out for the next several weeks. Automatically. Without me touching anything. I’m not saying this to impress you. I’m saying this because I spent months feeling guilty about not being consistent, and it turns out the problem was never my discipline. It was my system. What Writepat Actually Does, Step by Step Let me walk you through the tool properly so you know exactly what you’re getting. Step 1: Write your newsletter. Open Writepat and start writing. Clean editor. No distractions. Built in research tool on the side so you never have to leave the page. This is your content pillar, the one thing you do manually, deeply, and with full focus. Step 2: Convert to platform posts. When you’re done, hit convert. Writepat uses Claude AI to generate: Twitter/X posts (single posts or full threads) LinkedIn posts (written in LinkedIn’s style, not just copied text) Substack notes (short, punchy, native to the platform) You can also import past newsletters by URL and convert those, too. Step 3: Edit and customise. You get a full compose editor for each platform. Adjust tone, length, add images, split into threads. The AI gives you a strong starting point, you make it yours. Step 4: Schedule. Use the smart queue. Set your preferred posting times once, and Writepat fills those slots automatically every time you schedule content. Or pick specific dates and times manually. Your choice. Step 5: Auto publish Writepat publishes to X, LinkedIn, and Substack automatically. Not when you’re online. Not when Chrome is open. Any time. Any device. Computer off. This is the part that no other tool does the same way. Every competitor I found for Substack auto publishing needs a Chrome extension running. Writepat doesn’t. It publishes directly from the server. What Else Is in There A few things worth mentioning that I use regularly: Scratchpad , a space to dump ideas as they come. I have a note open next to my writing some mornings. When something crosses my mind that’s not for this newsletter, I throw it in the scratchpad. On Sundays, I come back, pick one, and turn it into a newsletter. Ideas , a structured idea bank. Different from scratchpad. This is where the ideas I want to develop properly live. Analytics , see what’s performing across platforms. Impressions, likes, engagement. It pulls data so you can see which of your posts actually landed. Evergreen Recycler , automatically surfaces your best performing posts after a cooldown period so they can be scheduled again. Your best content works twice. Split & Schedule , write one long piece, drop a delimiter like in between posts, and Writepat splits it into multiple posts and schedules them separately across your queue. Good for long threads or drip content. Voice Profiles , tell Writepat how you write. Tone, style, topics to avoid, and phrases you use. The AI uses this when converting your newsletter so the output sounds like you, not like everyone else. Who This Is For Writepat is built for newsletter writers who want to focus on their long form content and let the tool handle social distribution. If your content pillar is your newsletter, whether it goes out on Substack, Kit, Beehiiv, or anywhere else, Writepat takes everything you’ve already written and turns it into weeks of social content automatically. You don’t need a team. You don’t need four tools. You don’t need to be online at 9 AM to hit publish. You just need to write your newsletter. The Founding Member Offer Writepat went live five days ago. For the first 50 people who become paying members in the next 30 days, 50% off, forever. Not just your first month. Every month. Every renewal. 50% off for as long as you use Writepat with subscription cancellation. There’s also a 7 day free trial, so you can see if it’s made for you before paying anything. The founding member discount is capped at 50 people. When they’re gone, the price goes back to full. Use code FOUNDING50 at checkout. Claim Founding Member Pricing First 50 members get 50% off forever. Use code FOUNDING50 at checkout. Offer ends April 19 or when spots run out. Join Founding Member → Start your free 7 day trial at writepat.com One Last Thing I built Writepat because I couldn’t find it. Not because I wanted to build a SaaS. Not because I saw a market opportunity. Because I was a newsletter writer who needed a system that didn’t exist, and I got tired of waiting for someone else to build it. If that story sounds familiar, if you’ve been duct taping tools together, skipping posting days, feeling guilty about inconsistency, this was built for you. Come try it. Tell me what you think. I read every reply. Owol Founder, Writepat writepat.com
Writing long form content feels like a big deal, and if you're a human from Earth, you've probably made it feel even bigger than it is. You've thought about it so much that it started feeling like pressure. Like people who write newsletters have some superpower (I wish we did), or maybe they spend hours on a single piece. You might think you lack something to write about, that your life isn't interesting enough, or that you just need the perfect tool, the one that will help you write faster and better. But deep down, you and I both know you're just stalling. Your brain is looking for a way to make you feel good about writing without actually writing. "I don't like to write," they say. No one started this because they like to, but because they got used to it, and now it feels normal. "I can just ask AI to write 1500 words", while you can, there is a caveat to that. AI will write it for you, but I am not sorry to say, my friend: you might be the only one to read the article. If you are thinking of taking long form as an interest, this letter is for you. This is not about the steps that make you a better writer. It's about how to stay consistent with writing your long form. Writing is just thinking out loud in words. That is all it is. The Four Pillars: Live, Plan, Write, Review This is all it takes me to write a newsletter every single time. Instead of waiting for the perfect time to write, I use the imperfect time I have. Something is better than nothing. First, I live the life. If you stay all day indoors, every day, playing video games here and there, you will always feel like you have nothing to talk about. But if you're out there sometimes living, working when you have to, going to the gym to keep fit, by the end of the day, you will always have something to say to someone out here who is going through it. You might be the one to help them with your experience and your writing. Second, plan what to write about. The best writers plan before they start writing. Not because they don't know what to write about, but because they want to make sure the thinking is right and get a better understanding of what they're writing about. Plan when to write, and what your writing routine will look like. This will help you stay consistent. Third, write it down. Yes, this is the part most people start from, then feel overwhelmed and quit. You shouldn't skip the two steps above before this one. Writing is beautiful when you know what to write about and you have the experience. It's much easier that way. Now you can focus on writing, without going back and forth. Lastly, review what you've written. Don't make the mistake of writing and sending it out without reviewing. There is always one error you might have missed, and you can only find it when you review your words. How My Writing System Actually Works I write every morning, and by now it's like a routine, something I always look forward to the night before. It's been easy for me to write for a while now because of the system I have in place. My system starts with walking. I think deeply during my walking sessions every day, when I'm jogging, or when I'm bathing. Most of the time, my best ideas come from these three moments. The moment I have an idea, I think more about it, then I write it down in my system scratchpad. I make sure I write it in detail so that when I come back to it, I understand how it came about and what I want to talk about. This is not the only way my newsletter ideas are born. Sometimes I get ideas from the internet, but I don't write the full content there, so it doesn't feed my writing. Whenever I want to start a new newsletter, I go to my scratchpad and look for something I can write about. This frees my mind. Instead of thinking heavily about what to write about, I just pick one. The next step is research, which is easy for me; I click a button, and the app generates the research for me. I take a glance through it, then I start writing. I write for 90 minutes every morning and get 800+ words down. Some newsletters I send, some I keep for a later date, if I notice it's not right for now, or it will be much better later. I write one to two newsletters every week. There are days when I stop early, but those days hardly occur more than once a month. This particular newsletter was written in one 90 minute session. To some, that is a very long time to sit and write. But you don't see it as a long time when you're in it. The time will pass either way. It's up to you to do something you can read in five years and be glad you started. I write for myself, honestly. Apart from the gym, here, right now, in this seat, is the only place I find peace. It's also a channel to market my product. What more can I ask for? I take five minutes every Sunday to review my writing, make changes here and there, then click the magic button, ta da, it restructures the newsletter, sets the headings, and formats the text. I focus on writing in plain text because I know my system does the rest of the work. You can start without a system, but if you want to stay consistent, you need one. That's why I took my old system and built something focused specifically on newsletter writing, for newsletter owners and writers who want to send one newsletter weekly without losing their sanity. You write your newsletter; the system handles the formatting and converts it to social content for Substack, X, and LinkedIn, and posts automatically. You don't need to write a newsletter and also write all your social posts every time. I'm giving access on Thursday, stay tuned. P.S. Access drops Thursday. If you want to write your newsletter without also managing every social post that comes with it, that's exactly what this is built for.
Writing long form content feels like a big deal, and if you're a human from Earth, you've probably made it feel even bigger than it is. You've thought about it so much that it started feeling like pressure. Like people who write newsletters have some superpower (I wish we did), or maybe they spend hours on a single piece. You might think you lack something to write about, that your life isn't interesting enough, or that you just need the perfect tool, the one that will help you write faster and better. But deep down, you and I both know you're just stalling. Your brain is looking for a way to make you feel good about writing without actually writing. "I don't like to write," they say. No one started this because they like to, but because they got used to it, and now it feels normal. "I can just ask AI to write 1500 words", while you can, there is a caveat to that. AI will write it for you, but I am not sorry to say, my friend: you might be the only one to read the article. If you are thinking of taking long form as an interest, this letter is for you. This is not about the steps that make you a better writer. It's about how to stay consistent with writing your long form. Writing is just thinking out loud in words. That is all it is. The Four Pillars: Live, Plan, Write, Review This is all it takes me to write a newsletter every single time. Instead of waiting for the perfect time to write, I use the imperfect time I have. Something is better than nothing. First, I live the life. If you stay all day indoors, every day, playing video games here and there, you will always feel like you have nothing to talk about. But if you're out there sometimes living, working when you have to, going to the gym to keep fit, by the end of the day, you will always have something to say to someone out here who is going through it. You might be the one to help them with your experience and your writing. Second, plan what to write about. The best writers plan before they start writing. Not because they don't know what to write about, but because they want to make sure the thinking is right and get a better understanding of what they're writing about. Plan when to write, and what your writing routine will look like. This will help you stay consistent. Third, write it down. Yes, this is the part most people start from, then feel overwhelmed and quit. You shouldn't skip the two steps above before this one. Writing is beautiful when you know what to write about and you have the experience. It's much easier that way. Now you can focus on writing, without going back and forth. Lastly, review what you've written. Don't make the mistake of writing and sending it out without reviewing. There is always one error you might have missed, and you can only find it when you review your words. How My Writing System Actually Works I write every morning, and by now it's like a routine, something I always look forward to the night before. It's been easy for me to write for a while now because of the system I have in place. My system starts with walking. I think deeply during my walking sessions every day, when I'm jogging, or when I'm bathing. Most of the time, my best ideas come from these three moments. The moment I have an idea, I think more about it, then I write it down in my system scratchpad. I make sure I write it in detail so that when I come back to it, I understand how it came about and what I want to talk about. This is not the only way my newsletter ideas are born. Sometimes I get ideas from the internet, but I don't write the full content there, so it doesn't feed my writing. Whenever I want to start a new newsletter, I go to my scratchpad and look for something I can write about. This frees my mind. Instead of thinking heavily about what to write about, I just pick one. The next step is research, which is easy for me; I click a button, and the app generates the research for me. I take a glance through it, then I start writing. I write for 90 minutes every morning and get 800+ words down. Some newsletters I send, some I keep for a later date, if I notice it's not right for now, or it will be much better later. I write one to two newsletters every week. There are days when I stop early, but those days hardly occur more than once a month. This particular newsletter was written in one 90 minute session. To some, that is a very long time to sit and write. But you don't see it as a long time when you're in it. The time will pass either way. It's up to you to do something you can read in five years and be glad you started. I write for myself, honestly. Apart from the gym, here, right now, in this seat, is the only place I find peace. It's also a channel to market my product. What more can I ask for? I take five minutes every Sunday to review my writing, make changes here and there, then click the magic button, ta da, it restructures the newsletter, sets the headings, and formats the text. I focus on writing in plain text because I know my system does the rest of the work. You can start without a system, but if you want to stay consistent, you need one. That's why I took my old system and built something focused specifically on newsletter writing, for newsletter owners and writers who want to send one newsletter weekly without losing their sanity. You write your newsletter; the system handles the formatting and converts it to social content for Substack, X, and LinkedIn, and posts automatically. You don't need to write a newsletter and also write all your social posts every time. I'm giving access on Thursday, stay tuned. P.S. Access drops Thursday. If you want to write your newsletter without also managing every social post that comes with it, that's exactly what this is built for.
97% of Creators Are Broke And Most Don't Know Why Let that sink in. The top 1% of creators generate over 90% of the total revenue on most platforms. If you're comfortable staying in the 97–99% who are broke, this letter isn't for you. But if you're someone who wants to feed yourself after dumping your brain online, keep reading. You've been lied to. Told that if you just focus on creating content, six months later you'll be a millionaire. If it worked that way, there wouldn't be millions of creators who can't pay their bills. Dreams alone don't pay rent, and nothing will change unless you change. The Trap Most Creators Fall Into Here's what usually happens: you come in with the mindset that your life will change after six months of posting. You go to AI, generate six months of content, post consistently, and then the realization hits. It didn't work. And it won't, because after posting, who do you think is paying you? Ghosts. Yes, some platforms pay AdSense revenue, but $50–$200 a month is barely enough to cover your bills unless you're living far from the city. That's not financial freedom. That's financial anxiety with a posting schedule. The wrong strategy most creators follow is content first, monetization later . It's not entirely your fault, that's what you were told. But if that's the strategy you're following, you're on track to fail, like I almost did. The most common behaviors I see from broke creators: Giving away freebies with no follow up and no paid product behind them Chasing sponsorships before building an audience that actually buys Ignoring email list building entirely Creating content for months without a single offer or product to sell If any of those hit close to home, good. That's the first step to changing it. The endless posting, the algorithm chasing, the refreshing your feed to count likes, these habits will cost you your time, your income, your energy, and eventually your motivation. You'll end up with a few followers, fragile platform dependent revenue, and when anything changes on those platforms, you're back to square one. My Story — How I Made the Same Mistake In early 2024, I fell out of freelancing. I was tired of penny work, work that didn't challenge me. Every side hustle I'd started before, I'd quit after three to five months. This time, I wanted something I could stick to. One day, a YouTube video appeared in my feed about how people were making money on LinkedIn, $10k a month within six months, 50k followers, the whole pitch. It was November 2024. After watching about 40 videos on LinkedIn strategy, I decided to dust off my seven year old LinkedIn account, one I'd barely opened twice a year, and give it a shot. I set up my profile, posted my first piece of content in December 2024, and followed every piece of advice I'd been given. Six months later, I had made less than $1,000. I was confused. Every post I saw was talking about 20k, even 100k a month. I kept thinking I was doing something wrong. What I didn't realize then: that creator who went from broke to six figures on LinkedIn? She probably started six years ago. It was in the last six months of 2025 that I finally started doing what I should have done from the beginning. Instead of cold outreach, some creators say contact 50–100 people a day, which is not in my nature, I focused on creating content that made people reach out to me . I started learning how to build products people actually need. I positioned my offer for the right audience. The first product didn't perform well. I'm now building a second one, the first I've spent more than 40 hours on. But within those last six months, I reached five figures through my content alone. I stopped tracking likes. I started tracking impressions, inbound inquiries, and email list growth. That shift changed everything. "I can't write great content if I'm worrying about my rent. Since I started focusing on money, I started doing better work." I'm not earning the big numbers yet, but I can sit comfortably and write this letter without worrying about what to eat or debts to pay. As a creator just starting, make income your first goal, but not your only goal. The Big Pivot: Product First, Content Second Here's the reframe that changed everything for me: spend your first month creating a product, and the next five months creating content that sells it. You do not need millions of views to launch a product. You just need enough interested people. When you have a product, your content becomes sharper and more intentional, you stop writing for likes and start writing for customers. That's a fundamentally different standard. Ask yourself this: How many customers did my content get? not how many likes did it get? Right now, I spend more time on my product and client work than I do on content. My content creation takes about 90 minutes a day, long form writing that gives me more than enough for all my platforms for the week. I work less than six hours a day total. The rest goes toward product development and client projects. If your content creation time is longer than your money making time, you're on your way to burnout. When I ask creators who aren't making much money how they allocate their time, the answer is almost always the same: 85% on content, 15% on product. It should be the other way around. A Practical 90 Day Plan to Go From Content Creator to Product Owner Follow this step by step. Copy and paste it somewhere you'll see it every day, because the brain needs constant reminders. Days 0–15: Audit & Small Bets Audit your audience and your top performing content Pick one offer to test, a micro product priced between $5–$50 Write a one page sales pitch and a short email sequence Run a one off pre sell campaign to your email list and social channels Days 15–50: Validate & Ship Run the pre sell, collect feedback, and early testimonials Build a simple delivery format, PDF, video, or template Set up a basic checkout page using Gumroad or Stan Store Use an email platform like Kit (ConvertKit) for automation so you can sell on autopilot Days 50–90: Scale & Systemize Turn your validated offer into a repeatable funnel: lead magnet → nurture → sales Add an upsell or membership option Set weekly financial targets and track simple metrics: conversion rate and revenue per subscriber Post and promote your lead magnet in your content at least three times a week Improve your welcome and nurture email sequences as you go Which Monetization Model Is Right for You? For creators with small but engaged audiences, the fastest path to real revenue comes from three models: Digital products , create once, sell repeatedly Services (freelance or consulting) , monetize skills you already have Pre sales , validate before you build These work because they don't require mass reach or long ad funnels. A small, engaged audience can generate meaningful cash quickly when you have the right offer in front of them. Pick the path that fits your current schedule and audience size. Start simple, then scale. How to Launch Your Product the Right Way If you build a product no one asked for, launch it, and expect sales to pour in, you'll wake up to nothing. Here's how to do it properly. Pre Sell Before You Build You don't need to finish the product before you start selling it. Pre selling validates your idea so you don't waste weeks building something nobody wants. I made that mistake once. Now, every product I create gets pre sold first. Create a simple sales page on Gumroad or Stan Store. Send your email list a message letting them know the product is in development and they can get it at a lower price before the beta release. You can sweeten the deal with a one on one call or any add on that gives early buyers a reason to act now. Keep Your Launch Assets Minimal You do not need a fancy landing page for your first digital product. Gumroad works fine and takes no more than three hours to set up. Your welcome email sequence should be three to five emails, no more. Keep it simple enough that you can maintain and improve it as you go. Create two social posts to introduce your pre sale to your social audience. Don't over promote on social, people will unfollow fast. A short demo video on your sales page helps too; it lets people see exactly what they're buying and builds trust. Use Testimonials and Scarcity — Ethically People buy what other people are already buying, especially when others are speaking well of it. Collect testimonials from early buyers and feature the ones that describe a specific result your product helped them achieve. Use scarcity when launching, let buyers know the first 20 people get a special bonus, or that early access is at a lower price. But be truthful. If you say an offer ends on a certain date and it's still available the next week, you've taught your audience they can't trust you. If you need to extend an offer, be transparent: let your list know the deadline has been extended briefly, clearly explain why, and clarify what the original buyers get that new buyers won't, keeping your word to the people who acted first. That kind of integrity builds a loyal audience that trusts you every time you launch something new. Tools and Platforms to Get Started (Keep It Simple) You don't need the latest, most expensive tools to make money online. You need three things: 1. A social media platform 2. An email service provider 3. A place to host and sell your product For email: I recommend Kit (ConvertKit). It was built by a creator for creators. You can send newsletters, build automations, segment your list, and more. Send at least one newsletter per week and include your product link at the bottom, every email becomes a free ad for your product. For selling your product: You don't need to be a web designer or pay thousands for a custom page. Use one of these: Gumroad great for digital downloads Payhip good for digital downloads and online courses Stripe for more direct payment processing Start simple. You can scale later. In the beginning, you need speed, not perfection. Pricing and Positioning: Keep It Straightforward You've heard all the pricing advice, don't go too high, don't go too low, do the math, follow the rules. Here's the simple version: look at what your competitors are charging, price close to that, and beat them with your offer. The three common pricing tiers to consider: Micro offer: $7–$49 — low barrier to entry, great for building trust and getting your first customers Flagship course: $97–$499 — your core educational product High ticket offer or service: one on one coaching, consulting, or done for you work based on skills you already have Most creators start with the high ticket option because it leverages existing expertise. But regardless of where you start, the pricing is secondary. What matters is that someone actually buys what you're selling. You Can Do This — But You Have to Change the Game You're Playing You did not get into this to become a starving artist. You got into this because you wanted freedom, to do work you love, on your own terms, without being crushed by financial anxiety. That goal is real, and it's achievable, but not by playing the algorithm game everyone else is playing. The creator economy is not a hunger game you win by posting the most. You win by building something people can buy. Start with one product, one platform, one email list, and make your content work for that product, not instead of it. You know what needs to change. The only question is whether you're going to change it. The steps are laid out in front of you. Follow them, come back to this letter when you need a reminder, and stop waiting for the algorithm to reward you with a life it was never designed to give you. Build the product first. Let the content sell itself. Stack the income. Then scale. P.S. I also have the 90 Minute Writer, stay awake for that. It's the first product I've invested more than 40 hours into building. If you're serious about this, start there.
