3 builders who never spoke to each other

Out-research the thin version everyone else ran

Where rivals cover your subject shallowly, publish it an order of magnitude deeper: go to the places, eat the food, interview the owners, and collect what locals actually say instead of assembling another roundup. Dig where nobody is looking, such as early interviews given before someone was famous, and staff the work with writers who genuinely live in the market you cover.

The method

1. 01

   When rivals already cover your topic but cover it thinly, publish the same subject an order of magnitude deeper: more length, more detail, original insight, infographics and video.

2. 02

   Replace the listicle with actual reporting: go to the places, try them, interview the owners and collect what locals say, then publish the review.

3. 03

   Mine old podcast appearances rather than current posts when researching how someone grew, because interviews from the early days reveal what worked before they were famous, and plot those moments onto a timeline.

4. 04

   Hire writers who actually live in the city you are covering, and hand each one a template setting out the city, its readers and the house voice.

5. 05

   Curate from places the incumbents in your category ignore, pulling from independent writers, social platforms and video rather than the standard trade press.

What it returned

• 20

  Jimmy Daly of Animalz frames this as one of two routes to standing out in content marketing, and Chenell Basilio's 20-hour deep dives are the working example at 30k subscribers.

• Rather than another roundup of ten pizza places, the Lookout team eats at them, speaks to owners and gathers local opinion for a detailed review.

• Chenell Basilio's process for each Growth In Reverse profile: search for everything written about the person, consume what they have published about their own newsletter, listen back through past interviews for early growth tactics, then use a Twitter tool to surface their top posts.

• Geoff Sharpe staffs Lookout Media locally and briefs every writer with city, audience and style notes to keep editorial standards consistent across markets.

Sources

• Friday Feature: Growth In ReverseJimmy Daly · sparkloop.app · Do it better. · undated
• Friday Feature: Lookout MediaGeoff Sharpe · sparkloop.app · 🙋 How Lookout Media does it · undated
• Friday Feature: The RollupSam Klemens · sparkloop.app · #1 - Innovative Content Curation and Personalization · undated