How To Start: Dreaming Big vs Starting Small
Don't allow your dreams to remain dreams.
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I Love Martin Luther King’s “ I Have a Dream Speech”
It is one of the most powerful speeches of all time.
It came at a time when African Americans were going through some of the toughest times.
Years after slavery was abolished in the United States.
There was still widespread injustice and hate against African Americans.
A lot of white Americans still refused to see them as equals and went to great lengths to share their hatred.
Here is an excerpt from the speech;
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.
I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today.
I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.
It was a big dream then,
And if you told African Americans that one of them would later become President of the United States,
Not up to 0.01% would think that is even possible.
But Obama ruled for eight years
And this is one of the examples of the long-term impact of not only this speech,
But the fight many African Americans put in to achieve their dreams of living as citizens in a nation that they played a great role in building.
The battle is not yet over but a lot of progress has been made.
Imagine that African Americans insisted then that one of them must be president,
It would have led to a whole lot of problems.
And that is what I want to write about today.
My content serves creators, techies, and online businessmen/women
So you might be a bit surprised to see me writing about history.
But this story helps highlight the lessons in today’s article.
On Starting Small
I have talked with several people who have amazing ideas on things they want to build.
Most of the time it is something amazing and they can’t wait to bring it into the world.
For the sake of clarity, I am going to divide this section into two;
People creating content online.
People building a product/service.
Dreaming big is very necessary when building.
One of the quotes by Naval that I love so much goes like this.
It takes the same energy to build a small business as it takes to build a big one.
No matter what you are building, it will always take time and energy.
What differentiates Shoprite from the average store on your street?
It is vision and a willingness to learn what it takes to grow and scale.
The size of your vision determines the size of your world but you still need to start small.
If you have a big vision, you can't manifest it as it is in your head in the short term.
If you can, that means the dream is not big.
You are doing something that is within your current capacity.
Big dreams force you to grow and stretch you in ways you didn’t know were possible.
So let’s do some case studies to bring this home so you get a full picture.
Content Creators
Several people have reached out to me about creating content online.
Either to build authority around a certain topic that they can monetize
Or to create content that would drive demand for their product/service.
Over 55% of the time, the challenge they face is an unwillingness to start small.
They would show me the channels of the person who inspires them
And tell me how they want to build something that big.
I then ask them. “What channel are you starting with ?”
They will not go on to tell me of a plan where they create content across 2-4 channels weekly,
Some even tell me they have started but need strategies to help them be consistent.
I then explain something to them.
Unless you have a big team,
You can’t handle many channels at once
And even if you can afford to build a team and pay them, you still need to start small and this is why.
Marketing is the art of finding people who believe in what you believe in.
It is best to start on a small scale, find your tribe, and scale from there.
One channel and one topic is what you need to start.
I say topic because it is always advisable to start with one niche,
But every niche still has diverse topics that fall under it.
When I started writing online,
My goal was to teach people how to brand themselves on the internet
The end goal was either earning or getting access to opportunities.
But inside that personal branding niche,
There are topics like personal development, skill acquisition, creating online content, etc.
Understanding the lessons in these topics would make it easier for you to brand yourself.
But I focused on personal branding first
And when people started asking questions that fell under those topics,
I started creating content around them.
Years later, I discovered that business growth and personal growth go hand in hand.
And that opened up a whole new world of topics.
Focusing on one topic in your niche and adding more topics based on reader questions,
Helps your content gain relevance in the eyes of your readers.
Because they see that you are creating content that solves their problems.
I did the same thing for this newsletter.
When I started writing it this year,
In the first few weeks, I wrote on topics that had to do with starting the year right.
General topics that many people needed due to the season (new year),
But I started getting questions on more topics as we got into February,
So I started writing more about what people were asking me about.
I have gotten over 2400 new subscribers this year so far,
Because my content revolves around giving people what they want.
When creating content, you must focus on giving people painkillers and not vitamins.
Vitamins are great and very helpful to the body,
But do you remember the last time that you went to the Pharmacy to buy Vitamin C or B?
You buy vitamins mostly because you went for something else that was more pressing.
But the moment you have a headache,
You are rushing to buy paracetamol, and you don’t wait for when you need to buy something else at the Pharmacy.
That is how you should treat content creation.
Focusing on one channel also means that you give yourself time to get used to your new goal.
This reduces pressure and you also have time to maximize the features of the platform.
You can always secure your handles on other platforms
But don’t start publishing on other platforms until you grow on one.
You will also not have a cold start because you now have people that you direct to the next platform.
When starting, consistency is more important than perfection or being everywhere.
You increase your chances of burning out and abandoning the project if you carry so much in the beginning.
When I chose to start building my brand on social platforms in 2018.
I started with WhatsApp and built a very sold brand there
Before starting this newsletter or trying out other platforms like LinkedIN.
Another reason this newsletter is growing fast is because of my WhatsApp community.
They read and share my content with their friends.
Distributing content is as important as creating it.
If you are someone who wants to start writing a newsletter like me,
It pays for you to invest the first six to nine months in building a thriving community on social media.
Then you can now start directing them to your blog/newsletter.
Implementing things like SEO(blog) and Growth hacking (Newsletter) helps with further growth.
One of the growth hacks that I use for this newsletter is publishing one free book every month on a hot topic,
This has brought me over 900 new subscribers over the past two months.
The problem that many people would have with this strategy is being too stuck on the result of their mentors and desiring to replicate it.
But check your mentor's early days, you will see that they also started small and scaled with time.
Starting small is never bad, the problem has always been dreaming small.
Build a Product/Service
I have also seen people who want to build a product/service struggle with this.
Most products/services need to go through a testing phase where you build a simple version and gauge the demand.
At that stage, you need one or two features or offerings.
But I have seen people launch an app with many features at once, this affects the product.
Yes, some applications launch with many features and succeed,
But I have seen it in apps built by people who have been offering a service related to that app for a while. E.g Fullgap.
Every application has a core problem that it solves (main feature),
The purpose of every other feature is to make it easier for the application to solve the core problem.
The reason why I chose to highlight this product is so that you don’t waste time building things that people don’t want.
Launch with the core feature and some supporting features and observe how early users respond,
If they like it and start requesting more features
Then you can start choosing the next feature to build based on how interested people are in it.
A lot of companies have spent months/years building something that won’t scale because not enough people need it.
I hope that you learn from this and not repeat the same mistake.
That is all I have to say now, as usual, let’s meet in the comments section
You can ask any question you have, I do well to answer all questions.
Offers From Me
Last week, I published a book that teaches creators, techies, and business people how to earn foreign income.
It is very insightful and you can get a free copy without paying as long as you are reading this.
I am also doing a launch giveaway of $40. And everyone stands a chance to win.
But before you go to read about the book.
Like + drop a comment on this post if you have a question about dreaming big or starting small so you don't forget.
As you already know, I would love next week's article to come from the questions you guys ask.
After doing that, you can access your copy of the foreign currency book by clicking the title card below.
This was very insightful and interesting to read. I could go on and on. Thank you Ajulu. Please I have a question. I'm seeking to create content that'll help grow my personal brand as a life coach/personal growth strategist. Please what topic(s) do you suggest I begin with?
Every word touch me deep. I felt as if you were talking to me and I am thankful for the message