🧂The founder’s guide to growing on X: from 0 to 2,000 followers

Why most founders fail on X (and how to avoid their mistakes)

When I started my X journey in late 2023, I made every rookie mistake in the book. I followed Twitter’s recommended accounts, tried to mimic successful creators’ writing styles, and posted into the void with only 200 followers.

Sound familiar? Here’s what I learned the hard way: growing on X isn’t about posting great content from day one.

It’s about building relationships first, then leveraging those connections to amplify your voice.

If you intend to build an audience, let’s get one thing right: are you building a founders brand or business brand?

Why founder brands outperform business brands on X

Before diving into tactics, here’s a crucial insight: your personal founder brand will always connect more deeply than your company’s corporate account, especially in this Ai era. Here’s why:

Humans relate to humans, not logos. When you share your struggles building a product at 2 AM, people see themselves in that moment. When your company account posts the same struggle as a “behind-the-scenes” story, it feels manufactured.

Vulnerability creates trust faster than polish. Your personal failures, pivots, and small wins generate genuine engagement because they’re relatable. Corporate accounts can’t authentically share the founder’s imposter syndrome or the anxiety of running out of runway.

People invest in the person, then the product. Your audience follows your founder journey first—they want to see you succeed as a person. Your product becomes an extension of that relationship, not a separate transaction.

Authenticity can’t be faked at scale. Your personal account can admit mistakes, change opinions, and show growth. Corporate accounts have to maintain consistent messaging and can’t pivot as naturally.

Your personal brand follows you: Imagine you built and sold your first company, with a founder brand, you can easily start another company with an established audience group. It’s no longer starting from scratch any more.

This is why the most successful founder-led companies on X blur the lines between personal and business content. People don’t just buy products—they buy into the founder’s vision and story.

The village analogy that changed everything

Kevon Cheung’s book “Find Joy in Chaos” contains a brilliant analogy: joining X is like moving to a new village where nobody knows you. If you start yelling in the streets, people will ignore you. But if you make friends first, those relationships become the foundation of your influence.

The way how I think of X is a massive conference center where everyone has their own stage.

Some stages are packed, others barely have an audience. As a newcomer, your job isn’t to grab the microphone immediately—it’s to sit in the audience, ask thoughtful questions, and contribute meaningful responses that make both speakers and other attendees notice you.

Your stage-by-stage growth roadmap

Recently I have encountered this piece by George Ten, who shares a very similar strategy when he gets started before 1K followers.

https://x.com/GrammarHippy/status/1436054146021564417

Not a lot of successful influencers talk about the starting phase which 95% people give up. I want to focus just for the initial phase because it has been the most difficult part of my journey too.

Stage 1: 0-500 followers (focus: relationship building)

Timeline: 2-4 months with consistent effort

Core strategy: Give value to others, not yourself

At this stage, don’t worry about creating original content. Instead:

• Spend 80% of your time commenting thoughtfully on others’ posts

• Identify 10-20 creators in your niche and engage consistently with their content

• Ask insightful questions that spark discussion

• Share genuine reactions and add unique perspectives

• Build relationships through authentic conversations

This is the hardest phase. It feels lonely and progress seems slow. I spent two months stuck between 100-500 followers, mostly commenting and occasionally “roasting” designs. But this groundwork is essential—it’s where you make your first genuine connections.

Your first paying customer or meaningful business opportunity validates that people value what you offer and marks your transition from unknown to recognized community member.

The attention economy secret: Everyone wants others’ attention—you can give them yours. While everybody else is posting, you don’t need to follow the crowd. Join conversations as if you’re at an offline event. Your comments should be valuable enough to catch others’ attention and convert them into followers. Focus entirely on this before reaching 500 followers.

Offer expertise for free: If you’re skilled in SEO, writing, marketing, or design, search for relevant keywords and provide value by answering questions. Make sure your profile showcases your expertise so when people visit, they think “I may need this person’s help” and hit follow.

Choose the right crowd: Befriend people who are also small. Everyone wants to connect with large accounts, but they don’t care about you yet—they’re chasing even bigger accounts. Be patient, find your tribe of small creators, and build genuine relationships with people who can grow alongside you.

Embrace harder tasks: Commenting thoughtfully is harder than hitting “like.” Crafting valuable perspectives is harder than using AI responses. Creating well-structured posts is harder than random updates. But harder tasks yield better results—they’re not scalable initially, but they work and help you scale later.

Stage 2: 500-1,000 followers (focus: strategic content)

Timeline: 1-2 months

Core strategy: Share wins and build momentum

Once you hit 500+ followers, you have enough of an audience to make content creation worthwhile. This is where I sold my first landing page review for $35—a small win that Nick retweeted, pushing me to 900+ followers overnight.

Key tactics:

• Share your emotional wins authentically (people love celebrating with you)

• Continue engaging with your established network

• Post 1-2 pieces of valuable content weekly

• Respond promptly to all comments on your posts

• Leverage any viral moments by staying active in the conversation

Keep focusing on others: Even as you start posting, maintain your helpful mindset. I regularly help indie founders with design for free, asking “How can I help you?” and offering to follow, retweet, or assist with design requests. While follow-for-follow doesn’t create genuine followers, early supporters still provide valuable momentum.

Care about newcomers: Make a point to follow people with 0, 1, or 2 followers. I often post “Proud to be one of your first three followers!” These individuals can be incredibly smart and capable—follower count shouldn’t determine our interest in getting to know them.

Stage 3: 1,000-2,000 followers (focus: unique storytelling)

Timeline: 2-3 months

Core strategy: Share your unique founder journey

This is where your personal story becomes your superpower. I borrowed a viral tweet template and shared my story as “a full-time working mom with two young kids building a side business.” That single post generated 26K impressions, 150+ likes, and 200+ new followers.

Winning approach:

• Identify what makes your founder journey unique

• Use proven viral templates but make them authentically yours

• Share behind-the-scenes insights about your startup

• Post longer-form content with clear takeaways

• Focus on responding to comments on your own posts (this becomes your main time investment)

Share timely, valuable content: When ready to share thoughts with the world, timely lessons, progress, and results serve as the best hooks. Share how you achieved something, and people will follow if they find it helpful. I manually craft long posts rather than scheduling—write what your audience wants to hear when they want to hear it.

Stage 4: 2,000+ followers (focus: strategic influence)

Core strategy: Create targeted ripple effects

At this level, you gain real control over your growth direction. Every post creates a ripple effect, and you can steer these ripples strategically:

• Post about X growth → attracts more followers

• Post design insights → brings prospect calls

• Share startup lessons → builds thought leadership

Essential dos and don’ts for founder growth

Do:

• Be genuinely interested in others before promoting yourself

• Celebrate small wins publicly and authentically

• Engage consistently, even when growth feels slow

• Use weekends for posting (engagement is often higher)

• Maintain your unique voice as you grow

• Let sales happen through public conversations—99% of my sales came from inbound interest after public discussions

Don’t:

• Post original content before you have an engaged community

• Copy successful accounts’ styles without finding your own voice

• Give up during the crucial 100-500 follower phase

• Post on Friday nights (engagement typically drops)

• Change your username frequently (it hurts post performance)

• Rely on cold DMs for sales—public conversations work much better and require less effort

The compound effect of consistent engagement

The most counterintuitive insight? Your follower count matters less than your engagement rate in the early stages.

A highly engaged audience of 500 people who know and trust you is more valuable than 2,000 passive followers who barely notice your content.

Focus on building real relationships first. The followers, customers, and opportunities will naturally follow.

Your 30-day action plan

Week 1-2: Identify and follow 20 creators in your space. Spend 30 minutes daily engaging with their content.

Week 3-4: Continue engaging while sharing 1-2 personal insights or experiences. Don’t worry about likes or retweets.

Week 5-8: Maintain engagement while increasing to 2-3 posts weekly. Share small wins and lessons learned.

Month 2+: Start developing your unique storytelling angle while maintaining the relationship-building habits that got you here.

The long-term founder advantage

As a founder, you have built-in content advantages: product updates, customer wins, failure lessons, and industry insights. But these only work once you’ve built the relationships to amplify them.

Start with genuine engagement, build authentic connections, and let your founder journey unfold naturally. The audience will follow—and so will the business opportunities.

Summary

That’s it! Creatives often fail in business because they focus too much on perfecting their projects, stick rigidly to their rates, lack a clear focus, and get stuck in unscalable models. I hope you learned something through this newsletter and let me know what topics I can cover next!

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