2 builders who never spoke to each other

Build the post from hook, mirror and payoff

An opening that breaks the scan, a middle where the reader sees their own situation, and an ending worth saving or forwarding are three separate jobs, and a post missing any one of them gets skipped. Diagnosing a flop by which part was absent is faster than rewriting it, and the first line deserves outsized effort because it decides whether the rest is read.

The method

1. 01

   Build every post from three parts at once: an opening that breaks the reader's scanning pattern, a middle where they recognise their own situation, and a payoff useful enough to save or forward.

2. 02

   Diagnose a post that flopped by which of the three parts was missing: a strong hook with no feeling behind it, useful advice nobody stopped to read, or something moving that was not practical enough to pass on.

3. 03

   Use threads to add followers, and pour a disproportionate share of your writing time into the opening tweet, because the hook decides whether the rest gets read at all.

4. 04

   Write for reposts rather than likes, and work backwards from the reasons anyone reposts at all: to keep it for later, or to signal something about themselves.

What it returned

• 4,000

  Welsh draws this from writing more than 4,000 original pieces over six years, and says a post missing any one of the three gets scrolled past.

• 500,000

  Sahil Bloom went from zero to 500,000 followers in under two years on this approach, then left his VC job and reports making five times his old salary.

• Welsh notes that a throwaway post about coffee can outperform a good idea, because the coffee post opened unexpectedly, got specific about a shared moment, and named an emotion the reader had not put into words.

• He treats retweets as the mechanism that actually drives spread, so the question he asks of a draft is why someone would pass it on.

Sources

• What I learned from Sahil Bloom about building a creator flywheel – Jakob GreenfeldSahil Bloom · jakobgreenfeld.com · Twitter · 2022-08-07
• Reverse engineering attention in 2025.Justin Welsh · justinwelsh.me · The three-part game nobody explains · 2025-08-02