The most expensive mistake I made on X

When I started my X account I had no strategy and I operated completely anonymously.

I posted the only thing I knew anything about. Ecommerce.

(hence my alias name for years)

Tactics I'd tested myself, teardowns of what was working, the boring mechanics nobody puts in a highlight reel.

And suddenly, it was catching on. The right people started turning up in my replies, my DMs got interesting, and the follower count climbed every week without me changing anything.

I thought I'd figured out the top secret X growth hack.

Then it all just stopped.

No crash, nothing dramatic enough to worry about. Same posts, same effort, numbers flat.

Took me too long to work out why.

When everything you post speaks to one narrow group, you eventually run out of that group.

X had already shown me to every ecom person who cared. Nobody left in the room.

So I widened out.

Ecom pulled me into marketing, marketing opened up business, and that led into systems and eventually personal brand.

Every move came off data, not off whatever the timeline was excited about that week.

And from my learnings, comes 3 mistakes each one of you MUST avoid.

I’m telling you now so you can grow your accounts at half the rate I did:

Mistake 1: I married one content style for too long

There was a stretch where my account completely plateaued.

I blamed the algorithm. I blamed the platform. I blamed the audience.

The common denominator was me.

I'd found one format that worked and treated it like the whole strategy. I rode it long after the market had moved on.

Every viral format dies. The accounts that last spot it early and adapt. The ones that stay because "it used to work" slowly disappear. I was closer to the second group than I want to admit.

The platform has no memory. It doesn't care what worked last year, last month, or three weeks ago.

What I'd do from day one:

Keep a format graveyard. Log every format when it stops performing, so you stop defending a winner long after it's dead.

Test one new vehicle every week. One deliberate test is enough to never get caught flat when a format dies.

And learn the difference between the two ceilings nobody warns you about. The audience ceiling is when you've reached everyone in your niche who cares. The format ceiling is when the audience gets tired of how you're saying it. Both look identical in your analytics. Flat line.

If new formats still flop, it's the audience ceiling. If the same idea in a new format takes off, it was the format.

The moment you get comfortable with one format, you're already a step behind.

Mistake 2: I went too motivational

This is the one I find hardest to talk about.

I drifted into big statements. Broad life advice. Bet on yourself.

The follower count went up. So I assumed it was working.

Revenue didn't increase. Monthly clients didn't increase. My network didn't improve.

I had tens of thousands of new followers who were never going to buy from me, refer me, or open a single door.

Follower count is a lagging indicator.

10,000 of the right followers are founders, operators, and real decision makers with actual budgets, actively looking for solutions.

100,000 of the wrong ones are people who forget your account by the next post.

The masses are never going to be your real audience. The founders who sold their businesses for millions didn't come from motivational content. They came from trust.

Mistake 3: I changed my audience too many times

This one cost me the most.

Wiz of Ecom. Then marketing. Then NFTs. Then crypto. Then everything.

Every time something new was hot, I chased it. And every pivot reset the trust I'd already built.

People stopped knowing what to expect. So did the algorithm.

That's audience debt. Switch enough times and people stop paying attention. You're starting over even though the follower count is still sitting there.

What fixed it was a full revival strategy. Then picking one lane and staying in it.

Notice the difference between this path and the first one. Ecom to personal brand was driven by data.

Ecom to crypto was driven by whatever was hot.

Pick the lane before you chase the trend. Consistency is what compounds, and every pivot resets the clock.

The three phases almost every founder goes through:

Phase 1 is invisible. Nobody knows who you are yet. Your job is building proof and staying in the right conversations.

Phase 2 is competitor. A few thousand followers, some inbound, but you're still one of ten options.

Your job is making it obvious you're the one to speak to.

Phase 3 is micro-authority. You stop competing for attention. People come to you ready to buy.

They're not comparing or price shopping.

Most founders quit in phase two.

That's exactly when the compounding is happening underneath them. Then they watch someone else break out and wish it was them, when that person was simply doing what they stopped doing.

The compounding is invisible while it's happening. That's why so few people stay long enough to see it.

Follow the data. Pick the lane. Stay long enough for the trust to compound.

That's the boring answer. But it's the real one.

— Wiz

Some Things For You:

Work with us

We build and run personal brands for founders across X and LinkedIn. You give us around 45 minutes a week.

Personal Brand HQ

Our 12-week done-with-you program where we install the strategy, systems, AI workflows, and frameworks into your business.