Curiosity Opened Doors Sales Pitches Never Could

My first 30 days of writing Building Better and predictions for 2025

Thirty days ago, I questioned who would even read my newsletter.

I wondered about the payoff, what I would learn, and most importantly, what business did I have to be interviewing founders and analysing trends.

As Steven Pressfield said in The War of Art, “The more scared we are of a work or calling, the more sure we can be that we have to do it."

And fuck Pressfield for being so right.

Fast forward one month, I’ve written an article a week reaching 9x my audience through shares, and grown 12% in LinkedIn connections.

Not revolutionary numbers by any stretch, but enough to teach me something unexpected about connection in a digital age.

When People Realise You're Not Selling

The starkest contrast in my 30-day experiment came from outreach responses. For months, I had been sending cold emails trying to find clients for my consultancy.

The reply rate? About 1%. A disheartening trickle of responses that makes you question your approach and sometimes your career choices.

For the newsletter instead of pitching services, I began reaching out with genuine curiosity – asking people if they'd be interested in commenting on an article, or connecting after I'd read something they wrote that resonated with me.

The difference was unmistakable. Conversations became warmer, replies more frequent. People engaged without the defensive barrier that immediately rises when they sense a sales pitch coming.

One software company I spoke with liked the authenticity of my writing that they offered to help develop a content strategy to grow my audience further and teach me how to use their platform.

They wanted to understand how they could implement that same authenticity in their platform. The irony wasn't lost on me – by not trying to sell anything, I accidentally created value someone wanted to buy into.

The Posts That Actually Resonated

People connected most with my industry dialogues and trend analyses in marketing. Posts examining companies that were doing something right – not in a fawning, promotional way, but with genuine curiosity about their approach.

Several people commented that I "wrote well" – a compliment that caught me off guard. I always knew I enjoyed writing, but hadn't considered that I might actually be good at it. There's something powerful about external validation of a skill you've taken for granted.

But engagement wasn't consistent. Some posts tanked. I sent out a newsletter with an embarrassing typo in the subject line. There were moments when metrics dipped and I questioned the whole newsletter.

The difference this time was my approach. Instead of fixating on those short-term losses as I might have done previously, I focused on the long-term process.

Not the day-to-day metrics, but the cumulative growth, conversations, and – perhaps most importantly – the enjoyment I found in creating without immediate pressure to monetise.

Where Curation Meets Creativity

Through these 30 days, I've witnessed a shift in how we process information. We're drowning in content, much of it AI-generated and lacking genuine perspective. LinkedIn has become particularly notorious for this – endless streams of generic "thought leadership" that all sounds vaguely similar.

I believe we're going to see companies focus more on taste in the next 12 months. The emerging "vibe coding" trend exemplifies this perfectly – it's about prompting machines to provide output with a particular aesthetic or energy rather than technical perfection.

I experienced this firsthand during a hackathon a few weeks ago, where I "vibe coded" a dashboard and machine learning model. This low/no-code approach will change the game, empowering people who may not be technically trained but have taste and vision.

The second pattern I'm noticing is business becoming a form of creativity. Take Startmate – they had over 200 people attend their AMA for an Investments Associate role. Startup Scout positions globally are seeing similar interest surges. People want to participate in the entrepreneurship ecosystem.

Business innovation has become the next UX. Even listening to Greg Isenberg’s Startup Ideas Podcast, you hear discussions about solving enterprise SaaS challenges as a way to get “creative juices flowing”. This shift has perhaps always existed in some form, but the acceleration is undeniable.

Working With Machines, Not Replacing Ourselves

One of the most valuable insights from this has been about the relationship between human creativity and AI tools. I use tools like Grammarly to proofread my writing, but would struggle to replace my writing with AI-generated content. It simply can't replicate my tone and thought patterns in an authentic way.

The more interesting question is how we augment our processes. How can I enhance my research with Perplexity? How might CamelAI help analyse industry data?

The goal isn't replacement but enhancement – using tools to amplify uniquely human abilities like curation, connection, and contextual understanding.

Three Non-Negotiables For Momentum

If I were to distill this past 30-days into a framework for maintaining momentum, these would be my three non-negotiable elements:

First, stick to a weekly rhythm. Consistency trumps occasional brilliance. Having a process and a small audience to post to creates accountability even when motivation wanes.

Second, determine your distribution process upfront. Know exactly how and when you'll share what you create, removing decision fatigue from the equation.

Third – and perhaps most overlooked – practice humility. Reach out to people. Have conversations that cut past surface-level platitudes. Offer genuine value rather than trying to sell at every turn.

Looking ahead to 2025 and beyond, the most valuable skill won't be technical expertise or sales prowess, but taste – the ability to curate signal from noise, to connect seemingly disparate dots, and to communicate with authenticity in a world increasingly saturated with algorithmically-optimised content.

Will I continue past these 30 days? Absolutely.

And I couldn’t do it without your support. Thanks for joining along so far.