Building a portfolio of writing businesses to $10M, and sharing my frameworks along the way.

My name is Nicolas Cole, and I am one of the most-read writers on the Internet.

Over the past decade, I have written over 5,000 articles online, and ghostwritten for 300+ Founders, C-level executives, NYT best-selling authors, Grammy-winning musicians, and more. I have also broken records on various digital writing platforms, like becoming the fastest-growing user on Quora in 2014, and becoming the most-read writer on the entire platform (out of 200 million users) in 2015. I have amassed hundreds of millions of views on my writing, and the topics I cover include hard life advice, category design, and digital writing principles.

I have also written over a dozen books, including the best-selling The Art & Business of Online Writing.

I am passionate about paying it forward and sharing what I have learned writing online for more than decade with other writers, creators, and industry leaders.

Here's a quick breakdown of my portfolio of companies, and how to get in touch.

WANT TO GET STARTED WRITING ONLINE?

→ GO HERE: www.ship30for30.com

Ship 30 for 30 is a cohort-based community specifically for people who want to start writing online. In this 4-week program, we help you build your daily writing habit, launch your Social Blog, clarify your niche, and master the fundamentals of digital writing. To date, we have helped more than 3,000 people get started writing online.

WANT TO BECOME A PREMIUM GHOSTWRITER?

→ GO HERE: https://premiumghostwritingacademy.com

Freelance writers charge per word or per hour. As a result, they're underpaid and burned out. Premium Ghostwriters charge per project, work directly with founders, CEOs, and business owners, and are more like "business consultants who happen to know how to write." As a result, they can charge a premium. In PGA, our Premium Ghostwriting Academy, we train writers on how to become Premium Ghostwriters, and learn how to package & price their services in lucrative ways.

WANT TO STAY AT THE FOREFRONT OF WRITING WITH AI?

→ GO HERE: https://writewithai.substack.com

Write With AI is a bi-weekly paid newsletters for writers, giving you strategies and prompts to help you turn ChatGPT into your own personal Digital Writing Assistant. 

WANT TO GET IN TOUCH?

→ GO HERE: www.nicolascole.com

In addition to writing and building my own businesses, I am also an investor & advisor to a handful of media & digital publishing companies. If you'd like to get in touch, please feel free to shoot me an email.

Email: cole@nicolascole.com
Twitter: @Nicolascole77

Nicolas Cole 🚢👻

Last month, I spent 9 hours collecting 102 writing templates and creating 2 AI prompts to help you:

• Write viral LinkedIn posts
• Find proven topics for yourself & your writing clients
• Create banger LinkedIn and X posts using proven templates

Why?

Well, the LinkedIn algorithm has changed.

It's HARDER than ever before to reach a wider audience and go viral.

So, to help you boost your reach for yourself and your clients, I collected all my proven hooks and post formats.

These have racked up millions of views on my content.

Inside the Social Ghostwriting Template Vault, you'll get:

• 30 LinkedIn & X hook formats (40M+ views)
• 50 short-form post templates
• 22 proven long-form post frameworks
• 2 AI hook generators (to help you go viral)
• The 8 topics EVERY client wants to talk about

This is everything you need to write viral hooks and posts (for your own content and your clients).

Want FREE access?

✅ Comment "vault"

I'll send it to you over DM ASAP.

I talk about digital writing, ghostwriting, and self-publishing | Co-Founder Ship 30, Typeshare, Write With AI, Premium Ghostwriting Academy | Author of 10 books | DM "👻" if you want to land high-paying writing clients

I'm 35.

And I would NEVER wish to be 25 again.

Going back is a fallacy.

Now I’m rich, not broke like I was a decade ago.

I’m married and happy, not single & lonely.

I’m way healthier, not grinding into burnout.

I’m driven by my curiosity, not a chip on my shoulder with something to prove. 

• I’m wiser
• I’m calmer
• I’m less stressed

And I’m less emotionally triggered by little things that don’t matter. 

In your 20s, your only advantage is energy.

But if you take care of yourself, then you still have the same energy in your 30s, but with way more resources & pattern recognition.

And one of the ways I've stayed mentally sharp is through journaling.

I've been doing it for 30 minutes every morning since 2010—and it's completely changed my life.

I use a system called Decision Journaling.

All decisions I make go through this process.

And this Black Friday, I'm sharing my entire system.

Join the waitlist here: https://lnkd.in/emYcR_ET

In the last 5 years, I've generated $20,000,000.

My simple superpower?

Writing every day.

But most people never get started:

• They overcomplicate creativity
• They overthink every word
• And they never hit publish

So here are the 8 simple steps I use to write every day:

—
📌 But the most important writing I do for 30 minutes every morning?

Journaling.

I've been doing this since 2010—and it's one the reasons why I've generated over $1,000,000 across:

• SaaS ($1m+)
• Agency ($5m+)
• Consulting ($2m+)
• Paid Newsletter ($2m+)
• Self-Published Books ($1m+)
• Cohort-Based Course ($3m+)
• Low-Ticket Digital Products ($2m+)
• High-Ticket Group Coaching ($10m+)

All decisions I make go through my Decision Journaling process.

And next week, I'm sharing my entire system.

Join the waitlist here: https://lnkd.in/emYcR_ET

8 Simple Steps To Build A Daily Writing Habit

In my 20s, I built a $3,500,000 writing agency.

The entire business was built on ONE skill (steal this):

Cold outreach.

• No ads
• No huge audience
• No fancy website or funnel

80% of the 300+ clients I worked with came from cold outreach.

And I wrote for:

• Olympic athletes
• Silicon Valley founders
• Grammy award-winning musicians 

Learning how to prospect was 100x more valuable than actually being able to write!

And after teaching 1,500+ writers this system inside Premium Ghostwriting Academy...

I've just packaged everything up into The Writer Prospecting Blueprint.

Why?

Because I see too many writers (copywriters, ghostwriters, content writers, freelance writers) struggling to land high-ticket deals.

So I want to get this into as many hands as possible.

Inside you'll find:

• 4 ways to land clients (and why 3 of them waste your time)

• My complete 3-step outreach system from DM to sale

• Real examples of terrible vs excellent outreach messages

• The exact bottleneck analysis system to fix your outreach

• Scripts for booking calls and closing deals

And 3 videos breaking down every single framework.

Want access?

Comment "outreach" and I'll send it across (for free!)

And if we're not connected, send me a connection request with the word "outreach" and I'll send it to you.

At 24, I was a broke copywriter.

But 3 years later?

I'd generated $200k as a writer.

Here's my story and 3 ways you can make money writing online:

Growing up, I dreamed of going pro in hockey. 

But I fractured my spine at 14 and again at 17. My NHL dreams were shattered. 

So, I turned to World of Warcraft for an escape.

WoW had the biggest impact on my life:

• Taught me to fall in love with monotony 
• Introduced me to "social networks" at a young age
• Showed me the Internet could be a competitive outlet

And, at 16, I got my first job writing about World of Warcraft.

Fast forward a few years, and I was working as a minimum-wage copywriter but my income was capped & I was building someone else's future.

So, I made a decision:

I challenged myself to write a Quora answer every single day for 1 year.

• Worst case scenario: I do the thing I love.
• Best case scenario: Something happens.

A few months in, one of my answers went viral.

It was the story of how I went from a skinny teenager undiagnosed with Celiac Disease to putting on 70 lbs of muscle as a gluten-free bodybuilder.

It got millions of views in just a few days.

I started getting hundreds of messages asking about my story and my fitness secrets.

So I spent all weekend pouring my heart into two eBooks: 

1. My workout routine 
2. My meal plan

I called it Skinny to Shredded. 

On Monday, I linked those eBooks to my viral Quora answer. Then, my phone started to buzz non-stop. 

Sale after sale after sale. 

In one weekend, I'd made more money than I did in a month as a copywriter. 

This moment changed my life forever.

Fast forward 2 years, I'd made my $200k writing online for myself & others.

So, how did I do it? 

And, if I was to restart from scratch today, what would I do? 

Here are the 3 best paths to making money writing online ↓

Path 1: Premium Ghostwriting.

This is the best opportunity in 2025. 

Most entrepreneurs, founders, & even influencers need writers. 

You'll be surprised how quickly you can scale to $10K+ per month. 

Path 2: Digital Products.

Your knowledge is valuable. 

Package your expertise into:

• eBooks
• Courses
• Membership sites

This is how we built Ship 30 & PGA.

Path 3: Paid Newsletters.

This is simple:

1. Give away your best stuff for free 
2. Build trust 
3. Launch a paid tier

📌 But the problem?

It took me years of monotonous work to master the non-writing skills to become a Wealthy Writer.

So, I'm sharing them in my Write Your Way To Wealth 3-Day challenge on Nov. 18th.

In just 72 hours, you'll learn what it takes to:

• Charge a premium
• Land dream clients
• Make 6+ figures as a writer

Secure your spot here: https://lnkd.in/eVyT_maj

"A couple million dollars per year isn't worth the effort."

Hearing my mentor say this broke my brain:

I was in LA at the time.

And my mentor was:

• Nearly a billionaire.
• Incredibly successful. 
• Wanted to try something new.

He’d exited his company a few years prior, and was starting to get bored.

So one day, we were hanging out, and he brought up the idea of starting an extremely high-level mastermind.

He started talking out the napkin math.

How he’d need to charge $250,000 per person to make it “worth it.”

And as a 27 year old still trying to figure out how to make serious money myself, this sounded like best-case scenario.

I said, “Yea, if I had your network this is 100% what I would do. I’d make a fortune!”

Until, a few minutes later...

He reached the end of his brainstorming and said:

“Eh, after splitting it with my partner, that’s only going to be a couple million a year for me. Not worth it.”

And that was the moment my brain broke. 

Because I realized I lacked context.

Since I was still far from wealthy, any idea seemed like a good idea.

But for someone 10 levels above me:

• Way wealthier
• More connected
• More experienced

It was the opposite. 

It wasn’t that the idea was “bad.”

It was that its potential as a vehicle didn’t accomplish the necessary goal.

The goal being to move the needle for someone who already had everything (making it a hard needle to move). 

I’m still a far ways away from that level of wealth and success.

But in my own small way, I’m now starting to feel and live and experience this same “problem.” 

The higher you climb, the more important it is to choose the right opportunity vehicle.

Which means saying “No” to lots and lots of great ideas you absolutely would have and should have said “Yes” to earlier in your journey, but have since outgrown.

📌 The opportunity vehicle I recommend?

Writing.

Because right now, demand is EXPLODING for writers.

(Even the biggest AI companies like Anthropic, OpenAI, and Perplexity are hiring 6+ figure writers).

Want to start making money writing & scale to $100K/year in 2026?

Then join me on November 18th for my 3-day LIVE challenge.

In just 72 hours, you'll learn what it takes to:

• Charge a premium
• Land dream clients
• Make 6+ figures as a writer

Secure your spot here: https://lnkd.in/eVyT_maj

I don't think the average person realizes how much money you can make as a writer.

A few weeks ago, I bought out my M850 BMW's lease.

Since I'm young, the sales guy asked me what I do for work.

He guessed tech.

"I'm a writer," I said.

He looked at me like I was speaking a foreign language.

There is SO MUCH money in writing.

And so much leverage.

More leverage than most career paths.

Everything you write isn't just "effort." 

It's an asset.

And the more you write:

• The more skills you acquire
• The larger your library grows
• The larger your digital footprint
• The more opportunities you attract
• The more pricing power you have, etc., etc., etc.

But it makes me so sad.

There are so many creative, talented people in the world. 

Yet, they think, "Nobody makes a living as a writer."

It's just not true.

You can make an obscene amount of money writing in the digital age.

You just have to be willing to go on the journey of building the 3 skills required to make 6+ figures as a writer:

• Packaging
• Positioning
• Prospecting

And I can show you them in just 72 hours.

Join me on November 18th for my 3-day LIVE challenge where I'll show you how to:

• Charge a premium
• Land dream clients
• And write your way to wealth

Grab your ticket here: https://lnkd.in/eVyT_maj

As a writer, I've generated over $20,000,000. But most of my "writing" success has NOTHING to do with writing. 

Instead, it's actually about dialing in 9 other areas of my life.

These make great writing easy:

—
📌 But the most important writing I do?

Decision Journaling.

It only takes 30 minutes every morning.

I've spent 15+ years journaling.

And I've used this simple habit to:

• Move cities
• Build & shutdown businesses
• Scale to $20M as a digital writer

And navigate endless relationship, financial, and personal decisions.

This week, I'm sharing my ENTIRE system.

But ONLY until Monday, December 1st when doors close.

Get Decision Journaling here: https://lnkd.in/emYcR_ET

9 Areas Of My Life That Make Great Writing Easy

The ONE habit I've been doing for 15 years which has massively accelerated my personal growth:

Journaling.

And I use these 7 prompts to gain self-awareness & mental clarity:

1. "What was I doing a year ago?"

This helps to keep things in perspective.

Looking back one single year reminds me that I have so much to be thankful for.

2. "Do I enjoy how I'm spending my time?"

If you're not enjoying your day to day, no amount of money or external rewards will make you feel more fulfilled. 

So, question what really makes you feel alive and what feels like a burden.

Then, ask how you can remove those burdens. 

3. "Who do I spend the most time with?"

I am such a firm believer that you are a direct reflection of the 5 people you spend the most time with.

Ask yourself if you're spending time with people who enrich your life, or people who are always asking for more and giving you less.

4. "How is my money being spent?"

I see money as fuel.

It's what allows you to do the things you want to do in life.

There are two ways to make more money:

• Work harder and earn 
• Spend less

Do a quick audit of your spending habits, and see if you can control some impulse purchases.

5. "What do I want to learn next?"

Most people reach a plateau when they stop being curious and instead fixate on doing things purely for financial gain—or the approval of others. 

But curiosity never leads you astray. 

Ask yourself:

• What you want to learn next
• What will help you grow beyond where you're at

Nurture that curiosity.

6. "How are my 5 buckets being filled?"

Each of us has 5 buckets that we fill with our time:

• Career
• Community
• Fulfillment
• Relationships
• Personal health

It's worth taking time to question how each of these 5 buckets is being filled.

Sometimes, you'll find you are spending far too much time being social.

Other times, too little time working toward a project or a goal.

Or sometimes, you'll find you haven't spoken to your family in months because you've been so busy. 

7. "How can I be more helpful—to those around me and to myself?"

You can't spend all your time trying to make everyone around you happy.

You have to prioritize keeping yourself happy too. 

Which is why it's worth questioning both.

• What can you do to be more helpful to those around you?
• How can you be more encouraging and more patient?
• And at the same time, how can you do those same things toward yourself?

Personal development is your ability to continuously ask yourself these questions on a daily basis, and slowly improve over time.

—
📌 This simple writing practice has changed my life.

And for the first time ever, I'm sharing my entire system inside Decision Journaling.

These are all the frameworks I've used to:

• Quit my job
• Build a $20M business
• Move across the country (3x!)
• And make life-changing relationship decisions

Grab a copy of Decision Journaling here (before it disappears on December 1st!): https://lnkd.in/emYcR_ET

I'm always asked, "What's the best ghostwriting service to specialize in?" Here's the answer I give every time:

Start with what you love to create for yourself.

For me:

I loved ghostwriting 800-word thought-leadership articles.

This is how I went from making $0 to $20,000/month as a writer.

And right now, ghostwriting is EXPLODING in demand.

For example:

Last week, 9-figure AI company, Anthropic just posted TWO full-time job roles paying $300,000/year each.

(And other non-AI businesses have been doing the same)

Want to start making money writing & scale to 6+ figures in 2026?

Then join me on November 18th for my 3-day LIVE challenge.

In just 72 hours, you'll learn what it takes to:

• Charge a premium
• Land dream clients
• Make 6+ figures as a writer

Secure your spot here: https://lnkd.in/eVyT_maj

5 benefits of writing on LinkedIn:

1. You can quickly test your ideas

2. You can form meaningful relationships

3. You can easily attract a niche audience

4. You can "earn" credibility (views, comments, etc.)

5. You gain elite clarity in your life, career, and business

But here's the downside:

—
📌 Before I start writing every day, I always do 30 minutes of journaling.

And when I have a big choice to make, I use my Decision Journaling prompts.

It's how I have:

• Finished 10+ self-published books
• Built multiple 7-figure digital businesses
• Consistently written online for over a decade

All decisions I make go through my Decision Journaling process.

And TOMORROW, I'm sharing my entire system.

Join the waitlist here (so you know exactly when it drops): https://lnkd.in/emYcR_ET

I journal every single morning for at least 30 minutes.

It's a habit I'll keep until I die.

No other daily habit has helped me regain complete clarity in my:

• Career
• Business
• Finances
• Relationships

In other words, in every area of my life.

My Decision Journaling system is how I turn a reflective practice into ACTION.

It's how I rapidly achieve my goals.

And now I've put my entire journaling process inside my latest product, Decision Journaling.

So, if you’re looking to head into 2026 with elite clarity & build a life changing daily journaling habit...

Get your copy of Decision Journaling here: https://lnkd.in/emYcR_ET

But be quick!

It's only available until midnight EST TONIGHT.

After that, doors close, and it'll be gone!

I've spent 15+ years journaling.

And I've used this simple habit to:

• Move cities
• Build & shutdown businesses
• Scale to $20M as a digital writer
• And navigate endless relationship, financial, and personal decisions

And now Dickie Bush 🚢 and I are sharing the exact journaling frameworks and systems that help us make decisions in all areas of our lives:

Decision Journaling: A Simple Habit That Can Change Your Life.

Inside Decision Journaling, you get 3 mini-courses:

Mini-Course 1: Decision Journaling 101

• Learn why journaling is the most effective tool for decision-making

• Understand the difference between "One-Way" vs "Two-Way Door" Decisions

• Get our 7-step Decision Journaling process to unlock elite clarity in 90 minutes

And more! 

Mini-Course 2: How To Journal

• Discover the best journaling "tool" we've found

• Understand why you should treat making decisions as a "skill"

• Get our 9 go-to decision-making mental models from Jeff Bezos, Charlie Munger, and more

Mini-Course 3: Journaling With AI

• How to use AI to enhance your journaling practice (not replace it)

• Get our Decision Journaling AI Tech Stack (4 tools we love)

• Master the 2 "ways" to use AI for better decision making

Plus, you'll get our Decision Journaling AI Mega Prompt.

When you grab your copy of Decision Journaling, you'll also get:

• Dickie's Journaling Process (prompts, journal extracts, case studies & more)

• My Journaling Process (frameworks, journal examples, case studies & more)

• Lifetime Access to our Private Skool Community

This is based on HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of hours we've spent journaling.

And we're convinced everyone is ONE decision away from changing their life.

So, we want to help you make that decision by giving you a simple system to help you:

• Unlock elite clarity
• Stop second-guessing yourself
• And finally make high-leverage decisions

Get your copy of Decision Journaling here: https://lnkd.in/emYcR_ET

(But you only have 1 week to get it... doors close December 1st at midnight EST!)

This scientist had ONE goal 6 months ago:

To make more than $1,000/month.

For context:

Shruti met with her Success Coach 1-on-1 at the end of June with a BIG problem.

She was booking high-quality sales calls from her outreach.

But they weren't closing.

$1,000 is all that hit her bank account that month.

No bueno.

So, we gave her 3 clear action items:

1. Follow up with leads before the end of the week

2. Send a proposal to a high-quality potential client

3. Practice closing on sales calls with peers in our 1,500+ ghostwriting community

Two months later?

Shruti hit $12,000 working with only 3 clients.

And she's been holding steady there ever since.

Everyone on our PGA team is committed to helping her land 1-2 more clients before 2026.

And I'm betting she will.

Why?

Because now is the greatest time in history to make a living as a writer...

IF you master these 3 skills:

• Packaging
• Prospecting
• Positioning

And in just 72 hours, I will show you how to use them to make 6+ figures as a writer.

The Write Your Way To Wealth 3-Day Challenge starts TOMORROW.

Secure your spot here: https://lnkd.in/eVyT_maj

I'm 35.

And over the last decade, I have:

• Self-published 11 books
• Wrote thousands of articles
• Generated $20,000,000 from my writing

And in this time, I've faced these 9 uncomfortable truths:

1. Your parents are flawed individuals, just like you

As children, we:

• Put our parents on a pedestal
• Project our wants and needs onto them
• And do this for most of our adult lives

Failing to accept our parents for who they are.

2. The people in your life are a "hall of mirrors" for who you are

• If you're a dramatic person, you attract drama
• If you're an egomaniac, you attract egomaniacs
• If you're an insecure person, you attract insecure people

Like a magnet.

3. If you don't grow together, you grow apart

All relationships require nurturing on a consistent basis.

Otherwise, life pulls you apart.

• You change
• They change

Eventually, you don't recognize each other.

4. No one owes you a job

When you graduate from high school or college, nobody owes you a paycheck—that's a lie we've been told.

Your value to a company only exists so long as that company needs you.

5. Safety is an illusion

People spend their entire lives working jobs they hate chasing "safety."

So do entrepreneurs: "Once I make enough $$$, then I'll be safe."

These are lies we tell ourselves.

You never know what could happen.

6. Status symbols only work on people "below you"

• Nobody richer than you cares about your Rolex.
• Nobody happier than you cares how big your house is.
• Nobody smarter than you cares which university you went to.

Status symbols only impress the people who are easy to impress.

7. The purpose of life is to give your life purpose.

Some people view life as:

• A game
• An adventure
• A "waiting period between lives"

All of these are right.

Or none of them are.

Your life's purpose is yours to choose.

8. Your life story is the sum total of all your decisions.

Most people think they ARE someone in life—and they make decisions.

In reality, it's flipped:

You are no one. But with each decision you make, who you ARE becomes more and more developed.

Actions tell your story.

9. It's easier to be broke and guaranteed to fail—than rich and at risk of losing it all

• Responsibility scares people.
• Instead of accepting responsibility, most people defer it.

Better to know they are unhappy and complain vs try to fix it and fail.

—
📌 I confronted 1,000s of harsh truths (like these) every single morning while journaling.

This simple habit is how I make rapid progress in my: 

• Relationships
• Business
• Career
• Life

And after 15+ years, I'm revealing my ENTIRE system.

But it's ONLY available this week... doors close on December 1st!

Click here to grab your copy of Decision Journaling: https://lnkd.in/emYcR_ET

Making money as a writer is rarely a "hard skill" problem.

Instead:

It's almost always a "faulty belief" problem.

You literally can't hit $20k/month because you don't believe it's possible.

But anything is possible if you fix these 8 faulty beliefs:

And once you do, writing your way to 6+ figures per year becomes simple.

In this video, these 8 writers were able to make a combined $258k per month:

—
📌 Want to start making money writing & scale to $100K/year in 2026?

Then join me on Tuesday, November 18th for my Write Your Way To Wealth 3-day LIVE challenge.

In just 72 hours, you'll learn how to:

• Charge a premium
• Land dream clients
• Make 6+ figures as a writer

Secure your spot here: https://lnkd.in/eVyT_maj

PS—Want to watch the full video?

Search "These writers broke their faulty beliefs & got RICH" on YouTube to find it.

At 29, my first 7-figure business put me in the hospital.

6 years ago, I was:

• Working 10+ hour days
• Managing 23+ full-time employees
• Helping our team write for 80+ concurrent clients

The stress sent me to the emergency room with shingles.

These 13 painful mistakes caused this misery:

—
📌 Despite these mistakes...

I never stopped this little 30-minute habit:

Decision Journaling.

I've used this simple, daily practice for 15+ years to help me:

• Self-publish 11+ books
• Make the decision to quit my job
• Scale to $20,000,000 as a digital writer

Want my ENTIRE system to make rapid progress in your life, career, and business?

(You only have until Monday... doors close on December 1st!)

Get your copy of Decision Journaling here: https://lnkd.in/emYcR_ET

13 Painful Mistakes Scaling My First 7-Figure Business

5 uncomfortable truths nobody tells you about making your first $1M:

(I wish I'd learned these sooner)

1. "Slightly more money" in your 20s has a huge opportunity cost.

It's almost never worth it. 

In your 20s, you (likely) lack enough skill to make real money yet. 

So working 2x harder for that extra $2,000 is a waste. 

Just focus on learning. 

Because once you cross the threshold of "real skill" (likely in your 30s+), you'll make 10x or 100x that for a fraction of the effort. 

2. If someone is overconfident about an idea, they're more likely to fail.

Some pattern recognition I've built over the past decade is realizing:

• When someone is "sure" something is going to work, it probably won't.

• When someone can articulate the risks for why something won't work, and why they're going to try anyway, it probably will.

3. It always costs 2x as much, and takes 2x as long.

This has proven true over and over again in my life.

With any:

• Goal you set
• Status you want to gain
• Metric you want to chase

Remember this:

You should walk into it thinking, "This will probably take me way longer, and cost me way more than I'm currently anticipating."

If you're wrong, great. You'll appreciate that it got done faster/cheaper.

And if you're right, also great. You won't be caught off guard.

4. Intelligence has very little to do with financial success.

I know a lot of very smart, very accomplished, Ivy League people who can't figure out how to build anything on their own. 

And I know a lot of idiots who make millions of dollars a year. 

The differentiators are always:

• Effort, and how hard you're willing to work
• Ego, and your ability to get out of your own way
• Consistency, and how long you're willing to suffer for

5. The grass is always greener, but nothing in life is ever easy.

People love coming to uninformed conclusions about how "that person over there" has it easier. 

And it's almost never the case.

A mentor used to say to me, "You're going to have a bag of problems either way. You just get to pick the bag." 

No path in life is free of challenge/obstacle/pain/uncertainty. 

These are part of everything. 

So changing paths doesn't fix the problem. 

It's just a different bag of problems—but problems nonetheless.

Over the last 10+ years, I've generated $1M across 7+ writing business models:

• SaaS ($1m+)
• Consulting ($2m+)
• Paid Newsletter ($2m+)
• Ghostwriting agency ($5m+)
• Self-Published Books ($1m+)
• Cohort-Based Course ($3m+)
• Low-Ticket Digital Products ($2m+)
• High-Ticket Group Coaching ($10m+)

And the fastest way to make money as a writer:

Ghostwriting.

It's how I went from making $0/month as a freelance writer to hitting $20k/month in 60 days.

Want help landing your first (or next) high-paying client?

Click here to get a free, 5-day email course on how to get started: https://lnkd.in/ecq7Y7tn

The biggest mistake stopping freelance writers from making more $$$ online:

Writing "anything" for "anyone."

Clients want to pay you a premium—but only if you niche down.

Here's how:

—
📌 This 1 simple change is how my best friend and I landed our first 2 ghostwriting clients within 24 hours.

We went to a startup event.

And we kept repeating the same phrase to everyone:

"We run a ghostwriting agency that specializes in writing thought leadership articles for startup founders looking to raise their next round of funding."

The funny thing?

It worked—we left the event with our first client.

In the Uber ride home, our 2nd client emailed us to say "I'm in."

And in the next 18 months:

• We landed more clients
• Built a team of 20+ employees
• Scaled to over $2,000,000 in revenue.

This is the power of niching down as a ghostwriter.

And right now, demand for ghostwriters on LinkedIn is exploding.

Want some help making money as a LinkedIn Ghostwriter?

Then click here to grab a copy of The Art & Business of Ghostwriting: https://lnkd.in/exKMwacD

I’ve been journaling since I was a little kid. I don’t know why—it just always seemed like a fun thing to do.

But I started journaling “deliberately” in 2010.

I was going through a hard time (who isn’t at 19/20 years old?) and feeling really lost. 

I turned to journaling as a way to:

• Set goals
• Find clarity
• Better understand myself
• And hold myself accountable

I have been journaling (just about) every day ever since.

It has become a foundational part of my life and the way I make decisions. 

In fact, I can’t think of a single major decision I’ve made in the past decade that didn’t involve some amount of journaling.

I have easily written over 1,000,000 words JUST in my journals.

Most of my journals by the end of the year are 100,000+ words.

Multiplied by 10 years, and you get somewhere north of a million words. 

(This is not counting all the other writing I do, professionally. This is JUST journaling.)

So it’s safe to say… 

I’ve learned a thing or two about what it means to journal effectively.

Now, all that said, I don’t believe there is 1 “correct” way to journal.

In fact, my own journaling process has changed a lot over the past decade. 

And I continue to go through periods where I prefer a physical journal vs a digital journal, or where I prefer short-form journaling vs long-form journaling, etc. 

The point is: 

There is no 1 “correct” answer.

All that truly matters is that you make it a habit, and use journaling as a way to increase your self-awareness and productively make decisions in your life.

And if you want help building a lasting journaling habit, then get my new digital product, Decision Journaling.

These frameworks have helped me:

• Quit my low-paying ad agency job
• Move cities & start relationships
• Scale to $20,000,000 as a digital writer

Get your copy of Decision Journaling here (before doors close on Monday, December 1st): https://lnkd.in/emYcR_ET

Alohaa

Here is what I am interested in & and execute @ Alohaa.ai

Goals: See that, we have profitable acquisition & scale. 

1) To find the right audience, in really really large numbers (right channels).
2) See that we understand the pain points well, and use them as messaging (our customers should feel - this is exactly what's causing me pain while using traditional phone systems for their business, let me sign with Alohaa.ai and get free from it)
3) Once they are in our funnel, I would love minimal drop-offs(that's what we strive for)
4) From here on, our Sales, Support, and product teams play the post-acquisition picture and they do it great, so my job mostly here is to just have peace of mind knowing all the customers are being handled by the right people & teams.
5)Well, you may notice that I have PM experience(and also kept it here). 

Initially year, I worked both on Product and marketing, now that we are more confident about the product, and our team has great people who understand (and build for customer pain points/feedback), 
I completely moved into marketing to distribute our product to a much larger audience.

One last thing, If you want to talk about any of your - Business Telephony needs(VMNs, IVR, Cloud Call Centers, Voice broadcasting, WhatsApp messaging, etc.) and see how alohaa.ai can help you or want to talk about SaaS marketing/product/unit economics. You can simply DM me. I am available 24*7 to respond(kidding I am not, I will respond as soon as my work & life allow, but we will talk)

Head of Growth

Reforge

Member

Reverie Language Technologies

India has 600Mn Internet users while 500Mn of them cannot read English. We help D2C, E-Comm, Fintech and other verticle markets to go local in 12 Indian Languages. Currently we are the only company to provide end-to-end solutions for any brand (Text, Speech, Bot automation etc,.). 

This will help you 5X your market size, get profitable faster and become a Unicorn in lesser time(if that's your goal). I am currently working on D2C, Fin-Tech & Transliteration services.

Product Manager

Travelling

After quitting my job at the previous company(Way2online). I wanted to take a 10-12 week travel and exploration break. I am currently exploration places back to back which is expanding my world view and how much each geography, person, and even food changes in an overnight journey.

10-12 weeks is a very short time for a full-time exploration of the world(for now few parts of India). But I am understanding the rules of a long journey. While I attach more memories to my heart & soul. I am finding myself and evolving as a person and I can really feel it.

Travel Break

Way2Online

I head the growth team.
Increased the funnel convention by 25% (landing page to code integration)
Grew the total website traffic from 2 Lakh to 5 Lakh (source: Similar web)
Grew the registrations by 10,000 with in 10 months
Doubled the organic traffic.
Helped launch WordPress and Shopify plugins. 
Came up with pricing strategy and become operationally profitable.
All above at zero marketing costs, same team size.

Co-Creator & Growth Head @ Truepush.com

Drew the Initial wireframes for the product on pen and paper, rolled out the product within 5 weeks of ideation. Managed new features and roadmaps for the product based on the feedback from the customers. managed the tech/design team until the push notifications reached 45 Bn Push notifications/month.

We have won multiple G2 and other Saas Awards for the product and ease of use. Have a great sense for good UX and really love not including things that are needed in the first place. I wrote the product copy. Have the product releases happen on time through sprints. Responsible to the growth/sales team and manage expectations while signing up with high-volume customers.

Our G2 Reviews - https://www.g2.com/products/truepush/reviews

Co-Creator & Product Head @ Truepush.com

10X - Business Short News 
Entrepreneurs, CXO's and Investors often have busy schedules and it will be impossible for anyone to be updated on all business news.  We at 10X are covering 7 major industry news, general business and politics/sports. We believe this is the only app you will need to cover all the news. Our content team works really hard to curate business news with quality and deliveries in time. You can download Android version here - http://bit.ly/a10xapp , IOS Version - http://bit.ly/i10xapp

Product Head - 10X - Business Short News

Startup Talks

Startup Talks is a Community for Early Stage Entrepreneurs where they can Learn, Network & Collaborate on different verticals of a Startup. We are currently have 25000 + members in our community.
If you are an early stage entrepreneur you can attend one of our monthly meetup at one of these cities - Hyderabad(www.meetup.com/startuptalks) , Bangalore (www.meetup.com/startuptalksbanglore) , Mumbai (meetup.com/startuptalksmumbai )

Founder & Organizer

[self-employed]

I am exploring a couple of niche spaces.
- Movie Franchising to brands 
- Helping Authors to Increase their PR, establish credibility to and increase book sales

Freelance Marketeer 

Zenty

Zenty helps Brands to connect with powerful Influncers handpicked by us to execute offline campaigns which helps them generate word of mouth, get consumer insights, generate content for their marketing channels and many more. Our platform will help Brands learn more insights and use the data and content generated to use in their other marketing activities which can increase their over all ROI on marketing and branding spent.  You can reach me at Manoj@zenty.co for more details.

Founder

Startup Leadership Program

The Startup Leadership Program (SLP) is a highly selective 6-month world-class training program and lifetime network for outstanding founders and innovators. SLP Fellows have founded over 1000 companies that have raised $450 million, and include breakthrough and award-winning startups like Runkeeper, Sensobi, Shareaholic, Solar Junction, Voicetap and Ubersense. The program began in Boston in 2006 with seven Fellows (participants). It has grown to 26 cities in 12 countries.

Fellows spend six months in a rigorous cross-disciplinary entrepreneurial-CEO training program that combines

* Mentoring from successful entrepreneurs
* Extensive participation in active VC, corporate, and entrepreneur network
* Coaching and professional development
* Fireside chats with entrepreneurs and VCs and
* Focused skill-building workshops

Fellow

IIIT-H Foundation

As part of its mandate to encourage entrepreneurship both inside and outside the IIIT-H community, the IIIT-H Foundation (aka Banyan Intellectual Initiatives) runs the incubator known as the Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE) on the IIIT-H campus. CIE provides an environment and an ecosystem that supports start-ups in building technology-differentiated products and in taking them to market.

Manager

I advice on Product Management | Growing your customer base | Career Growth

Ex-Founder | Growth | Ultra Runner | Writer

From failed startups to scaling Truepush to 100B+ notifications monthly and 4,500+ customers worldwide, I've learned what it takes to build products people need and grow them relentlessly.

I built Truepush from paper wireframes to becoming a top 10 global player in our category. At Alohaa.ai, I doubled sales within just 3 months and drove consistent month-over-month revenue growth.
Beyond business, I push limits personally. 

I recently completed an 82.4km ultra run during a 12-hour stadium event. Mountains, travel, and nature are where I find liberation through both excitement and boredom.

Learning obsessively fuels everything I do. I've devoured 336+ books, and continuously invest in courses (Mindvalley, MasterClass, Matt Gray, Justin Welsh, Reforge and more).

When knowledge compounds with consistent execution, results follow:

- Built a 25,000-person startup community across 3 cities
- Published 250+ LinkedIn posts in 2024 alone
- Recognized among the top 1% of mentors on Topmate.io
- Created Solopreneur OS to help others identify market gaps and build growth systems

All while maintaining 7 hours of sleep nightly, seeing friends regularly, and maintaining my unusual preference for vegetables over chocolate (though I love both).

Want to build something great? Let's connect.

Manoj Surya

A lot of my initial understanding of product building product came from books written by Jason Fried and DHH (creator Ruby on Rails)  , co-founders of 37signals. 

They probably have no idea how much they impacted me. I was able to get our(prev) teams to build products quickly minus the BS, due to the frameworks and thinking from those books. 

These people call out the BS happening outside and love their philosophy of building a product, running a team, having a life, all my certain mental models.

I saw their Fizzy demo on Twitter and loved how much they simplified kanban boards (aka trello like to give a context. 

$20 for unlimited cards , unlimited users is the price, all features (only one pricing for all)
open source

In the world of over doing and everyone wanting an enterprise level pricing. This feels rebellious(like they always have been).

2X Founder | Head of Growth | Ultra Runner | I write on Growth for B2B and Personal Learnings

graphical user interface, text, application

I met a person who was Forbes 30 under 30 
This was 10 years ago

I still remember the conversation

Me: Congratulations bro for Forbes 30 under 30

Him: <looked side ways so no one is near by and said> bro I am happy I got it, but it's good for PR and marketing, noting else,  
Noting changed in terms of doing customer acquisition or building our product/company

Looking back, I see his conviction to see the difference between publicity and doing great product & distribution

I saw his posts and activity recently, he seems to be doing still great than most people I know

PS: Having said that, I won't mind a Forbes 40 under 40 for marketing. Well why not? (Forbes are you listening?)

In Singapore, there are desserts called Kachang and Chendol. 

They are super popular to locals, but for me, it’s one of the weirdest food (and it’s all Veg).

They put some jellies and shaved ice, and add some colors,

Until here it’s fine, a little extra to our Ice Gola here in India. 

Now they add corn and Rajma on top.

How grains can come on a dessert is beyond my understanding of food

But I did understand one thing

The thinking, habits, and reality we experience are very normal because that’s how we always knew

It's the same with them

Food, culture, thinking, world views can be so different depending on which home, town, country you live in, and that reality is only personal to you

Travel helps me be humbled by how much there is to know and experience 

You can read all about the color blue, but if you don’t see it, you won’t know it, same with experiences 

I just hope you, me, all of us change to a culture where giving and spending time with ourselves and in experiences/places is a frequent thing (at least yearly if not less)

No alternative text description for this image

Why don't people speak about delayed gratification?

Naval Ravikanth is famous,
But not many people read the books he suggests

We lost our appetite for films like we used to have before
But we can binge-watch series or even reels alike

We want AI to do everything
And losing the ability to think deeply,
heck, we are not even reading the whole thing that AI is generating.

We want quick dopamine hits so we feel better about ourselves
But what truly makes meaning is something built over time and with depth.

Use AI for sure, but use it to brainstorm or let it follow your direction
Not the other way around, where you believe it by default

The same goes for any content, skill, work, etc.

The easiest way to build this is to have a 1-year goal for a hobby and stick to it

1) It makes you a better person because you show commitment
2) You will get better at one more skill and will have depth

What do you think? What other ways would you suggest?

Don’t go to Starbucks when you are on a deadline. You may be latte.

A Visual representation of me falling for my own procrastination voice of - "Okay, let me do this tomorrow"  😂

One year to this madness.
some milestones are special.

Adobe bought SEMRush for $1.9Bn

While I am slightly baffled by how a Design company buying a marketing tool company would help them,

The deal seems sweet,
SEM Rush had  $376.8 million as its most recent revenue(and highly profitable) 

So it's a 5X multiple. Feels like a good win on both sides, 
Now to see how their design + marketing integrations would benefit one another's tool 

(If noting, being like a standalone business unit itself seems like a good deal)

Person A: My strategy is to make Viral videos

Me(Marketer): how do you plan to make it go viral? 

Person A: We make videos using AI and will ask it to give viral videos

(Internally started to die) 

Me: doesn’t work like that

Person A: With AI, anything can be done. Also will make making Zomato like branding todi branding 

Me: You are a SaaS company and branding isn’t sending notifications 

Person A: I keep high bar, we will do this for brand recall

(Me started to walk to my grave)

Me: First you need need a good product, then
acquire customers, then see if you getting retention. Then look at which channels are working, after speaking to few and looking at what’s working you can refine your messaging, marketing etc an then decide what you want to do from above (after nailing distribution)

Person A: I want to do branding from day 1

(Me giving up and walking away with my pockets in hand, don’t know where)
——-

PS: The conversations are real but with different people. It’s not their fault thinking that way as they aren’t from marketing. However it would be nice if they learnt some themselves how it works for Startups (rather than brands with budgets). And even learnt the sequence of doing things (or take advice from someone who been in that path).

How to lie without lying. Startups 101 - 

1) We have 100% growth on social media from last week
Aka -> went from 1 subscriber to 2 (and it’s my dog)

2) We are building awareness, not focused on customers yet 
Aka -> We are doing all kinds of marketing but not getting conversations 

3) We are AI first company internally
Aka -> We signup for all AI tools and see why works, but we don’t know yet what we want

4) Our customers don’t have time, hence the slow sales 
Aka -> We still haven’t figured a pain point our customers would love to give time and money for 

5) We are doing great 
Aka-> half the time we put out fires but it’s something you can’t help, so let me answer you politely

What else would you add?

I remember one of my friends father was so upset that,
his office is paying people to teach him excel and brought a computer in the office

He is like - what’s wrong with accounting books? At this age why should we learn computer and excel sheet?

I was flabbergasted by how much blind he have become to see the changes 

He has the accounting knowledge
He works hard 
He had experience 
But excel is just a tool - that became a key component in their work now(non negotiable)

Likewise, AI is just a tool that became a key component.

You have the skill
You can work hard
You have the experience 
and where it’s needed, work with AI tools, invest time in learning (and even your own money and consider it as learning fee,

because your company won’t pay for new tools just for learning)

AI Wrappers and Prompt Engineering are fine, 
as long as there is a method for how it's been done.

Generating 100 ads with 1 prompt isn't prompt engineering.
If your prompt can generate ads that does research and then convert
people into paying customers, then we are on to something.

My strategy for the day -

Wake up
Have breakfast
Work
Lunch
Nap
Nap
Work
Scroll Scroll Scroll
Eat
Walk
Sleep late

This has a flaw, what is it? .... Thinking???
I gave my day plan and not a strategy

Likewise, I see many teams giving out a plan and 
calling it a strategy
Some who fancy(read BS) themselves, 
even call it blue ocean strategy for no reason

Strategy is - 
How you win ->
Why people buy, only from you
Why only you can produce this (for a specific audience)
and Why it's hard for someone to compete(at least in short term)

Eg: I will make you a curry isn't a business plan,
I make a curry that has a ingredient, only I know that grows in the soil that is available only in my backyard and it hits you like spice but stays for few hours

Makes sense?

PS: What's your plan for the day?

I have a feeling that vibe coding tools will start building vibe coding components in their tools.

Reason?

I see so many case studies where with simple misplaced code, the founder got a $5000 a month (from free users, not even paid).

Or the password started being visible to everyone.

Building components pre-hand in vibe coding tools may reduce that issues by a lot. Especially while choosing payments, authentications, taking personal data.
Still it would be vibe coding but with all security checks and basics in place.

If you can gamify something to give limited access or status, you can make money, like LinkedIn premium does.

Same read by Zomato is giving Zomato gold for Rs.30, or charged extra for priority access in airports (or even at religious places)

Our primal instincts match to the level of money we can spend.

The podcast that most people are anticipating is now to be released.

I definitely am curious about this.

3 things to make us better at work

1) Focus on KPIs, follow up with action, measure/repeat
2) Revise and work on fundamentals from different perspectives (usually books/case studies)
3) See where the processes in above can be automated(tools/AI/ sometimes by people) VS you are needed, then build them

This way, your results will come in faster times.

This is something I never expected I would see

I just love how people at YCombinator talks about value first then scale 

Going full stack, probably is harder because the scale is harder. But it provides better value than providing just the tool

Its crazy how YC asks you to Dog food your own AI Tool and build more revenue and value

Like if you have a AI marketing tool, you hold you be willing to go all in, build full stack agents /AI (ofcourse wrappers) and fast forward the process for your clients?

PS: What do you think of this approach?

graphical user interface, text, application, email

Marketing and Fiction , the common thread -

Agatha Christie books are still sold widely and even made into adaptations like this one on Audible.

How come a fiction book is relevant after decades and different generations?

Simple - She plays on suspense and emotions, and they are timeliness

Likewise, in marketing, if you understand that customers buy how they feel first and then figure out if it’s useful for them -

then you will start getting better at it

Good marketers understand their customers needs and emotions and usage level and human level

and then build campaigns on top of it

Also why marketing is misunderstood 

People looking at it think it can be done using Claude to write a copy

But AI is only as good as the expertise of the user using it 

If you want to get better at marketing, understand your user needs and motivations, read fiction (may be) and then figure out best loops/funnels and then frameworks / tool’s to integrate, run , test, learn, repeat 

Easy peasy :D

I’m going to give a talk on Digital channels in a couple of days.

Need help - if you were to learn something new from a talk like this,

what are the pointers you feel must be covered to benefit you the most?

taplio

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