3 builders who never spoke to each other

Earn the reshare by writing about them first

A thorough breakdown of somebody's work is the cheapest route to their attention, because it flatters them and is genuinely useful at the same time. Booking a weekly slot for it and crediting the original creator at the close makes the reshare likely, and choosing a company everyone already recognises supplies reach your own name cannot.

The method

1. 01

   Write and publish a detailed review or teardown of a creator you admire, because a thorough piece about someone's work is the easiest way to earn their attention and often a reshare to their audience.

2. 02

   Put a weekly slot in your calendar for analysing another entrepreneur's work and publishing the breakdown, so the relationship starts with you having given something.

3. 03

   Publish teardowns of pages from companies everyone recognises, since the famous name supplies the reach your own product cannot.

4. 04

   Each week take the single best item from your newsletter, build a thread around only that, and credit the original creator at the end so they are likely to reshare it.

5. 05

   Publicly shout out creators whose work you rate, either by sharing the piece or threading the parts that struck you, which exposes their work and puts yours in front of their existing fans.

What it returned

• 1984

  Welsh frames this as the applied version of Cialdini's reciprocity principle from Influence, published in 1984.

• Pat Walls published a breakdown of Welsh's business plus a tweet about it; Welsh retweeted it and the post reached close to 100k impressions.

• A Swipe Files teardown of the redesigned Stripe homepage spread widely on Twitter, which he attributes largely to the Stripe name.

• The tactic is naming the creator at the close of the thread in the hope of being amplified by them.

Sources

• 2020 Year In Review | Corey HainesCorey Haines · corey.co · What went well this year? · 2021-01-01
• Grow Your Brand By Rooting for OthersJustin Welsh · justinwelsh.me · 1. Share the spotlight · 2023-05-06
• How to Sell Yourself (without being salesy)Justin Welsh · justinwelsh.me · Principle 1: Reciprocity · 2023-07-01
• Say Thank You – The Bootstrapped FounderArvid Kahl · thebootstrappedfounder.com · Thanking your Audience · 2021-07-02
• How to Plan Your Year In 4 Easy StepsPreetam Nath · preetamnath.com · Actions · 2020-12-20