When you’re a startup just starting with content, nobody gives a shit about you. But there are currents of shitgiving already happening.
To get traffic, we need to tap into those. There are two types of shitgiving happening at any moment in time:
Thematic shitgiving
At any given point, people care about a number of topics. By creating around those, we can tap into them and get people to give a shit about us.
An example: People care about the Browser Company and its product, Arc. By answering questions people had about it, we got people to pay attention.
The more enthusiastic people are about the topic, the more likely they are to click on it, regardless of who created it.
Personality shitgiving
Some people/companies are so magnetic, people will give a shit about anything they put out on any topic. These people have a lot of shitgivers aka an audience.
If we can get that person to give a shit, they can get a lot of others to give a shit.
Example: Lenny’s audience gives a shit, we got him to give a shit and then they all gave a shit.
Tap into these currents of shitgiving and you get traffic. But you’re still where you started: Nobody gives a shit about you.
But you can change that.
Shitgiving is a function of trust: The more consistently you make things worth giving a shit about, the more people will. You should make this easy by letting people sign up to get more stuff.
The more specifically you know what your people give a shit about, the easier you can deliver them exactly that. This means they’ll continue to give a shit and tell more people to give a shit.
And then you might become the topic, person or company people natively give a shit about.