In this episode, we learned how Arvid Kahl built his audience on Twitter and the frameworks that he shared in his book called The Embedded Entrepreneur.
We discussed:
02:26 – How Arvid started an entrepreneur and built his audience (the story)
19:32 – How he fights the impostor syndrome
23:08 – How to build empathy while building an audience
27:28 – His simple framework to be a trusted domain expert
33:52 – How he thinks about company audience building on Twitter
Key Links:
Arvid’s Story & Key lessons from the Podcast
Audience building is tough but it is also necessary. But what if you have no idea how to start?
You learn a few tricks from those who have already built their audience.
But first, here’s a story for you!
Arvid started the SaaS company Feedback Panda with his partner Danielle Simpson helping English teachers provide feedback to students in a convenient manner.
This was not Arvid’s first venture in business. He had tried before and had also failed in it. Sometimes his business didn’t even reach the final product!
But what stood out here was in just two years, Feedback Panda grew to a value of $55,000 MRR, and Arvid sold it for enough money to change his life. He now had the option to sit back and do whatever he wanted.
He actually did so, too. But he realized that playing video games was definitely not the purpose of his life.
So he decided to go all out and share his knowledge of selling business with other people. That is how he wrote his book Zero to Sold.
Zero to Sold soon found his way into the market. Arvid found the confidence of running his own business and also selling it after its success. This taught him lessons about Bootstrapping his business which he knew he needed to share with the world.
Being an avid reader, he also knew the power of books and that’s how Zero to Sold happened. After Arvid shared his insights on building a business seeing the massive response it gained, he moved on to help build the next most important thing an entrepreneur needs – an audience.
Arvid has this interesting path of growing together with his audience that you cannot escape. And he did exactly that. He literally built his book, The Embedded Entrepreneur, in public, sharing with people his ideas and thoughts.
He has a massive following of over 25k on Twitter and he found the right and productive way to engage with them. The success of his book can be seen from the fact that Arvid sold more than 1000 books in just two weeks of its launch.
That’s what makes Arvid’s content stand out. His knowledge is timeless and applicable to almost anyone looking to build their own business.
Now that you know his story of success, let’s see what we can learn from it.
Here you go:
1 – What’s in sharing?
A major chunk of Arvid’s growth is his documenting and sharing of his own journey with other people who are still on theirs. He documented his journey from selling Feedback Panda right to writing Zero to Sold and The Embedded Entrepreneur.
This helped people who were on a similar path as his to gain some direction. The continuous sharing of knowledge by Arvid led to him selling 350+ copies of his book on his first day of launch.
2 – Growth over Gratification:
Arvid’s key belief is to keep going on days of skepticism is to keep putting in your efforts, daily. Even if you put your 1% every day, it still counts because you are adding something.
Especially on platforms like Twitter where one Tweet might not do good one day but if it is seen by someone and he finds it amazing, you might suddenly be trending with it. You can not depend on your audience for instant growth, you just have to keep posting every day and it will grow.
3 – Why Audience Engagement Matters:
Arvid attributes the success of this second book to the fact that he actually built it in public. He started his book in January 2021 and posted his book for review on book.com in a month for reviews.
The Embedded Entrepreneur received 500+ feedback and that transformed its content from an ordinary book to a must-have pick.
4 – Audience Auditioning:
To work on your content you need to keep putting it in front of bigger accounts. They have already been on your path and the insights that they have to give can prove to be very valuable for your growth.
Use your network platforms to engage with these accounts and grow your content.
5 – Find Your Tribe:
Your audience will trust you if you let them in whatever you are building or trying to sell out. It’s almost like how a tribe works. You can become an expert in your domain by learning and sharing your experiences. As you continuously share your learning, your trustworthiness in that community increases.
The community will help you make your product better and share their insights. This is what will help you succeed in the long run. That’s the power of building a community and that’s exactly what Arvid did and his success of The Embedded Entrepreneur is proof of that.
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