I looked like a loser...

I still remember the exact moment I realized I looked like a complete loser.

I had just published my 57th tweet to a deafening silence of 2 likes (my cousin and a high school friend).

My friend texted me: “Saw your tweet. Trying hard to be a thought leader, huh?” with the crying-laughing emoji 😂.

It stung because he wasn’t wrong. My content was trying way too hard. It was performative, filled with business platitudes and sounding smart-isms I thought would impress people. And almost nobody cared.

This is the part of building an audience nobody talks about, "the desert phase". The long, awkward stretch where your friends and family are watching you shout into the void, post after post, tweet after tweet, with almost no response.

And yeah, you're still figuring out who your niche is, what you want to talk about and what this whole building an audience thing means.

Your friends are probably thinking (and sometimes saying): “Who does he think he is?” “Why is she so desperate for attention?” “Does anyone actually care about this stuff?”

If you are building an audience on Instagram, you notice that you're getting no likes, but a bunch of shares/forwards, because people are talking about you.

This is the moment when most people give up. This post is about this moment and why it matters.

Here’s what I wish someone had told me then back when I was in the "desert phase". This awkward phase is worth it.

Your first 100 followers aren’t just an audience. They’re your first customers. Your beta testers. Your distribution channel in its infancy.

Every tweet and post adds to your distribution moat. With AI making product creation easier than ever, what will truly set your business apart is distribution, community, and taste. That's why it's worth continuing to build your audience, it might be the only defensible edge left.