14k+ Followers in 30 Days: Recapping the GIR Growth Challenge

Summary

Podcast Summary: Growth In Reverse – Episode: “14k+ Followers in 30 Days: Recapping the GIR Growth Challenge”

Date: October 22, 2025
Hosts: Chenell Basilio & Dylan Redekop

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Episode Overview

This episode takes a behind-the-scenes look at the recent 30-day social media growth challenge run by the “Growth In Reverse” team. Chenell and Dylan break down the challenge’s structure, major outcomes (including the community gaining 14,000+ followers), lessons learned, and candid reflections on the true ROI of daily posting. They also share participant wins and talk frankly about burnout, content strategy, and next steps for creators seeking sustainable growth.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Challenge Goal & Structure ([01:07]–[03:36])

• The Growth Challenge was a 30-day initiative for anyone wanting to boost their audience on any platform (not just LinkedIn).

  • Stats: 128 people signed up; ~92 posted regularly.
  • Entry was $100 unless entrants had purchased the Growth Vault product, in which case it was free.
  • Prize for top participants included newsletter sponsorship spots and shout-outs.

• Purpose: To see what's possible when you post on social each day, foster accountability, and encourage true community building — not just follower count vanity.

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2. High-Level Challenge Results ([03:36]–[05:51])

• Cumulative Impact: 14,301 new followers across all participants.

  • Growth varied widely, with some posting every day and others much less.

• Awards: Prizes recognized both growth rate and consistency.

• Scoring: Moved away from just absolute follower gain to a logarithmic, percentage-based system to make it fairer for all audience sizes.

  • Example: Big spikes for those starting small (e.g., from 1 to 60 followers, an “insane” growth rate).

  Notable Quote

  "It was the best I could do... we gained about 14,000 followers across the people who were posting."
  — Chenell ([03:36])

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3. Host Results & The Burnout Factor ([06:45]–[10:18])

• Dylan’s Stats:

  • 25,900 impressions
  • 1,471 engagements
  • 107 new followers
  • Only 9 new email subscribers (from nearly 26k impressions)
  • Reflection: ROI for email list growth was minimal; time could have been better spent on deeper content.
  • Notable Quote:

  “It really was like an exercise in futility to some degree...”
  — Dylan ([08:31])

• Chenell’s Stats:

  • 179,000 impressions (driven by a few high-performing posts; most got around 1,000)
  • ~400 followers gained
  • Minimal newsletter subscribers (wasn’t consistently promoting it)
  • Experienced significant burnout from daily posting, neglecting follow-up engagement.
  • Notable Quote:

  “I got so burned out trying to post every day...”
  — Chenell ([10:08])

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4. The Optimization Rabbit Hole & Real-Life Examples ([10:18]–[12:26])

• Discussed advanced tactics (timing, comments, edits) for maximizing social posts, referencing Tom Alder’s success (5,000 subscribers pre-newsletter, massive consistency on LinkedIn).

• Noted that such feats are easier if social is your only channel — much harder when juggling newsletters, podcasts, or multiple creative outlets.

  Notable Quote

  “The burnout factor is real when you start going down that rabbit hole.”
  — Dylan ([10:27])

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5. Biggest Wins: Beyond the Numbers ([12:26]–[14:12])

• Networking Wins:

  • Partnerships formed, resulting in $1M+ project funding for one participant.
  • Re-established friendships leading to collaborations.
  • Real-life co-working meetups.
  • Personal milestones (e.g., first newsletter subscriber, viral posts).

• Chenell:

  “I think the biggest win from doing something like this is that you get to connect with really cool people.” ([12:26])

• Dylan:

  "It comes down to building these relationships... you never know where that can lead." ([13:33])

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6. Where to Focus Energy: Quality, Platform, & Repurposing ([14:12]–[20:24])

• Both hosts question if daily social posting is the best route for email or business growth.

• Emphasized “cornerstone” content that can be repurposed for social.

• Platforms like YouTube (with longer content lifespans) seen as higher-value.

• Agreed: build out high-value content, then draw social posts from that backlog.

  Notable Quotes

  “If I were personally thinking about where I would put my energy, it’d be more on something like YouTube or just creating better newsletter content.”
  — Chenell ([14:43])

  "I think that was one of my big takeaways — focusing on keystone content, longer-form, insanely valuable pieces that are really going to move the needle."
  — Dylan ([15:20])

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7. The Realities and Barriers of Repurposing ([17:44]–[22:16])

• Chenell shares that repurposing her deep dives into social snippets remains hard, both logistically and mentally.
• Adam Shibley's 12-week podcast repurposing strategy is cited as a smart example — showing success even with low "vanity" metrics (likes).
• Key Point: Consistency and systems matter more than chasing numbers if true leads or sales result.

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8. Metrics vs. Mindset: What Actually Matters ([22:26]–[26:53])

• Both hosts reflect on the obsession with followers vs. actual business or subscriber impact.

• Noted: Big audience ≠ big impact; self-doubt and imposter syndrome can be barriers to visibility for even seasoned creators.

• Platform differences: Twitter’s instant feedback is motivating, while LinkedIn feels “siloed” and less interactive.

  Notable Quote

  “We get so bogged down with these follower counts, which makes me hate that we used followers as the metric for winning.”
  — Chenell ([22:26])

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9. Challenge Structure: What’s Next? ([27:05]–[29:52])

• Hosts debate whether to repeat a similar challenge.

• Leaning toward shorter or input-focused challenges (7 days, focus on writing, or list-cleaning).

• Emphasis on input-based goals (e.g., 250 words a day) vs. outcome (subscriber counts).

  Notable Quote

  “Maybe seven days is better... long enough to get a result, short enough to stay focused.”
  — Chenell ([28:40])

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10. What Defines a Successful Challenge? ([30:06]–[32:40])

• Consensus: Success = getting people moving, building momentum, overcoming mental barriers.
  • Not about vanity metrics, but taking action and forming habits.
• Parallel drawn with “Ship 30 for 30”: showing up and publishing daily builds the muscle — quality comes with practice and reflection.

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Notable Participant Wins & Shout-outs ([32:40]–[35:34])

• Alejandra Rojas: +19% follower increase (2,270 → 2,700)

• Danny Naz: +1,200 followers

• Tom Orbach: +3,200 followers over 30 days

• Tara: First Substack subscriber, now hundreds in 45 days

• Caitlin: Posted more personally than usual and went viral

• Fat Chan: Hit MRR goal and closed a client within 3 days

• Becky: Grew her newsletter by 87.5% in one month

• Rachel: Shouted out by two Adobe executives

  Notable Quote

  “It is really cool, seeing that you had a hand in that... bringing them together at the very least.”
  — Dylan ([34:16])

  “I just like seeing all the things people are doing and who's interacting with who. Alejandra and Laura... met in person to come to one of our coworking events.”
  — Chenell ([36:13])

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Reflections, Advice, and Closing Thoughts

• Social posting sprints have value for visibility and relationship-building — but may not be the best for direct newsletter growth.
• Sustainable audience-building relies on high-quality content, repurposed well, and networking with peers — not solely chasing algorithms or daily posts.
• If you have an idea for the next challenge, reach out! The team is considering new formats and input-driven activities for 2026.

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Memorable Moments & Quotes

• "The burnout factor is real when you start going down that rabbit hole."
  — Dylan ([10:27])

• “I think the biggest win from doing something like this is that you get to connect with really cool people.”
  — Chenell ([12:26])

• “We get so bogged down with these follower counts, which makes me hate that we used followers as like the metric for winning.”
  — Chenell ([22:26])

• “If you get one like, and that one person turns into a client... 100% hit rate, it’s working.”
  — Dylan ([22:17])

• “Momentum — there’s so much power in that. We get ourselves stuck, but it’s really not that hard. You just gotta hit publish.”
  — Chenell ([31:13])

• "Alejandra and Laura... actually met in person to come to one of our coworking events ... and they're like, 'We're actually in the same coffee shop.' I was like, what?"
  — Chenell ([36:13])

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Timestamps of Important Segments

• [01:07] – Challenge launch, purpose, and format
• [03:36] – Cumulative results and stat breakdowns
• [06:45] – Dylan’s challenge experience and numbers
• [10:08] – Chenell on burnout and posting optimization
• [12:26] – The true “wins” and networking outcomes
• [14:12] – Where to focus: Platforms, content, and the case for YouTube
• [17:44] – Barriers to repurposing and mental blocks
• [22:26] – Metrics, mindset, and platform comparison
• [27:05] – Reflections on running future challenges
• [32:40] – Shout-outs to winners and stories of success

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This summary gives you all the context, insights, and quotable moments—capturing both the practical lessons and honest struggles of building a digital audience in public, with a focus on what actually translates to newsletter and email growth.

Transcript

[A]

We gained about 14,000 followers across the people who were posting.

[B]

I had 25,900 total impressions and I got nine new email subscribers in 40 days. From 25,000. No, it's not, it's not very good at all.

[A]

One guy got retweeted by a top figure in his niche. She actually grew her newsletter by 87 and a half percent. She didn't have a newsletter to write it, was she purely LinkedIn.

[B]

The burnout factor is real when you start going down that rabbit hole. What would you say was the biggest win then from this challenge?

[A]

I don't know. I don't know. Like, is it even worth it? So what happens when you post on social media every day for 30 days? Well, maybe you get your first newsletter sponsor or maybe you meet a friend in real life to do co working together. Or Maybe you get one and a half to $2 million of interest for funding your next project. That's what happened. Yeah. Those are some of the results that came out of our social challenge that we did last month and today we're going to recap how it went and some more details for you.

[B]

We had a, for those who don't know, we had a 30 day social growth challenge in the Growth and Reverse Pro community. Actually, it wasn't even within the Growth Reverse Pro community and it was public. Anybody could join. There's a small fee to enter. And, and we ran it from what was supposed to be September 1st to October 1st. We had a little hiccup with some software. We extended it basically September, September 1st to October 10th. And it was quite an experience where people could grow their social media following on whatever platform really they chose. So we had done a LinkedIn challenge in January of 2025 strictly on LinkedIn. And this, this challenge, we decided to open it up to the public and to any platform that you want to grow on.

[A]

Yeah. So the previous challenge we did was super fun. We had a leaderboard, we had people like competing, which is really hilarious to see every week. They were like, oh, I'm winning now, I'm in second, et cetera. We decided to do it again and just kind of open it up to the wider audience because after the last one there were so many people commenting on posts saying that they wanted to join and how could they join? And I was like, ah, I should have done a better job of promoting this. So, so this time we had a little bit more foresight and we decided to open it up and you just had to pay a quick hundred dollars fee, wasn't too crazy, but enough to make sure you were actually serious about it. And yeah, it went great. Where do you want to start with this, Dylan?

[B]

Well, how many people ended up joining? Like how many people did we have doing this, Doing this challenge?

[A]

Yes. So I, I also opened it up. People who had bought the Growth Vault, which is like a series of optimizations and growth tips that I find that I'm constantly adding to. So people have, who have bought that product let them in for free. So Overall we had 128 people signed up, but naturally when something is free, you don't take it as seriously. So about 92 people posted regularly.

[B]

Okay, okay. And then it also included some people from the Growth Reverse Pro community too, who opted into the contest. Yeah, okay, cool.

[A]

Yeah, exactly. Community members pretty much get access to everything.

[B]

Yes. Yes. Pro Community is the place to be for all things. One, one fee, all things. So it's great. Why don't we start with some high level stats because I know in our wrap up call you shared some really interesting stats on kind of the general contest. So why don't you share those just to get a. So people can get an idea of the impact of this challenge and what you could expect to potentially get if you join the next time. If there is a next time.

[A]

So 92 people, like I said, joined through the course of that. We actually, as you alluded to, we tried starting on September 1st. We were using a software tool. It didn't end up working out. So I manually went through and captured everyone's starting date or starting follower count on September 10th. So unfortunately, some people were posting for like 10 days and didn't actually get credit for it. Sorry, but it was the best I could do. And so we started the follower count on September 10th and from there until October 10th. Um, cumulatively. Cumulatively, that's a fun word. Uh, we joined or we gained about 14,000 followers across the people who were posting. So some folks posted a couple times and only got like 10 followers. Some folks posted every single day. And we can talk through some of those too. But there was a wide range, but 14, 301 followers to be exact.

[B]

Oh, nice.

[A]

30 days.

[B]

Yeah. And there were awards given too for the people who grew or had the biggest increase in followers. And also the people who posted every day were. If you posted basically all 30 days, then you got entered into a kind of a raffle to win a prize too.

[A]

The winner is taking up the sponsor spot in my newsletter for a week, which is fun. And then the other ones will get a shout out in the newsletter too. So they should. You'll be. We'll be seeing those. If you're on the email list, you'll be seeing the winners in an upcoming email.

[B]

Awesome. One interesting thing I think, as well that you figured out too, was basically how to gauge how who's actually growing their audience at a decent rate. We won't go into too many details, nerdy details on this, but in the past it had been like, oh, yeah, whoever gained the most subscribers. Like, well, people who have huge audiences. It's not necessarily fair to the people who dunk. So let's go with growth rates. So whoever grows by the most percentage. But then the people who had very small audiences had the advantage, because if you had 10 followers and all of a sudden you had a hundred at the end and you grew by a crazy amount, so that handicapped them as opposed to giving people with the bigger audiences an advantage. So tell us what you figured out and how you judged the placement.

[A]

So, like you said, typically I use growth rate because it just seems the most normal. But then there was pro community member Destiny actually was doing it, and she started a substack from zero. So she. She started with like, I actually had to put the number one in for it to even work because it was like, I don't compute. So she had 60 followers. So it went like 1 to 60 and it was like 7900% or something. Insane. I was like, hell, no one's ever going to catch that one. So then I brainstormed with ChatGPT and I came up with this nerdy logarithmic scale. I don't know how it works, but apparently it's an Excel thing too. Then I. I asked the people in the community and someone shouted out and said, yes, that's a great way to do it. And I said, okay, cool. It's not just chatgpt saying that.

[B]

So brings you back to, I think, math. 10 in 10th grade doing math.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Logger.

[A]

Some weird calculator with like a million buttons on it.

[B]

Yeah. Yep. Graphing calculators. Good times. Uh, we're dating ourselves a little. Yep, Exactly. I don't know if you have those. These in front of you, but I have my stats in front of me. I'm going to share some stats, so you can if you have yours pulled up or if you want to. So I counted the 40 days because I did start tracking and start posting on September 1st and went all the way to October 10th. So through that time, I had 25,900 total impressions. And there's people who were getting that many or more impressions on a single post. I have by no means a, a massive LinkedIn for following. I've got about 2, 800 followers at this point. Through those 25,900, almost 26,000 impressions, I got 1471 engagements and 107 new followers. So, you know, not nothing. And from the followers I tracked in kit, how many new email subscribers I got. Again, not necessarily from the new followers, but just throughout this time period I was able to track the, the referral for my new subscribers and I got nine new email subscribers in 40 days from 25,000. No, it's not, it's not very good at all. So it really, this bookends a lot of thoughts I've had about doing stuff like this and I'm, I'll dive into those thoughts maybe later. But it really was like an exercise in futility to some degree because I wondered how much, how much more I would have been able to do had I spent less time worrying about what to post every day and spent more time on bigger scope, bigger picture, deeper quality content and then extracted from that and posted on LinkedIn with that. So that was just a few numbers I wanted to share with mine. I'm not saying that you shouldn't post on, you shouldn't do a 30 day challenge, et cetera, et cetera. They still, there were still some definite gains and made some great connections and met some awesome new people who also joined our community after the challenge was over. So all of this was really beneficial, maybe in a non tangible way, but I thought if you just went from the actual like roi, probably not the biggest win for me.

[A]

Yes, I did a terrible job tracking subscribers over this period. I was trying to go download my kit list. It's going to take way too long while we're on this call, but I do have my LinkedIn stats pulled up. So throughout the 40 days I'll just start on September 1st, I got 179,000 impressions. Yeah, well it was like three posts that did that. So it's one of those things where.

[B]

80, 20 going to have to.

[A]

Yeah, like most of them did very few, like maybe a thousand, but then there were some where it's like 3,4000 and then like the highest one was 21,000.

[B]

What's your following count on LinkedIn right now? If you wanted to share for context?

[A]

Uh, it is 13,470 so not huge.

[B]

About 10 times mine.

[A]

Um, so you know you're at what 3,000 2800 times.

[B]

Hey, that's why I gotta use that graphing calculator more often. Oh my God.

[A]

That's pretty funny.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So over that time period for follower count, if we're going that route instead. Well, from the leaderboard, because this is not showing me, I think it was like 400, 400 followers, so nothing too crazy either. And then subscriber count, it was probably minimal because I wasn't like promoting the newsletter necessarily.

[B]

Why would you do that?

[A]

And I, I think I got so burned out with trying to post every day that I wasn't going back an hour later to like optimally time it right to put the link in the comment. And it was not great.

[B]

Yeah, it takes, it takes a lot to I think, do this and optimize it and do it really, really well. So we've talked a lot about Tom Alder and other people who are really good at doing these optimizations. You know, half an hour before you post, make sure you're engaging a bunch and then you post without a link and don't be the first comment. Make sure you get people to comment, then comment, then come with a link, et cetera, et cetera. Maybe edit your post to add a link to whatever call to action you want. So there's a lot of different ways you can do this that may be more optimized. But like you said, like the burnout factor is real. When you start going down that rabbit hole, it can.

[A]

Well, let's talk about it. Because Tom Alder, we talked about him a lot. He got to 5,000 subscribers before even launching his newsletter. He grew, he had, I, he started with a 60 day challenge and then he was doing it for nine months or something like that. But let's remember he wasn't doing a podcast. He didn't have a newsletter to write. He didn't have all of this other stuff. It was purely LinkedIn. So if it's your only channel, maybe you have a little bit more brain power to spend on it. And it was like you could say he had a full time job, which is fair and valid, but this is probably him, his creative outlet, right? He didn't have like other creative outlets necessarily. So he was like, let me write on LinkedIn. I don't want to not give him credit. Cause that is a ton of work. Uh, I just think there are, I don't know, there are like seasons for it and there are variations to it.

[B]

He definitely was solely focused on, at least from our perspective, from what we saw. He was very focused on just posting on LinkedIn and doing it consistently. And he maybe was posting on other platforms as well, like copy paste type of style of. Of whether on Twitter or not. But either way, he was. He was very focused on LinkedIn. He wasn't publishing a newsletter like you said, so all of his focus and attention could go into that.

[A]

So that's something to think about. But, yeah, I mean, it was. It was hard. And, like, I don't. I don't think it was worth it for the subscribers or the. Or the followers. I looked at the leaderboard. I had 502. Was my 502 or 502 that I.

[B]

Okay, what would you say then? What would you say was the biggest win then from this challenge?

[A]

I think that the biggest win from doing something like this is that you get to connect with really cool people.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I think that just looking at the wins that the. The people who did the challenge have had, I'm like, oh, yeah, this is awesome. Of course this is worth it. Who cares if you got four followers? But, like, the one guy posted, you can't see this as a win, but he's like, directly. Because of posting on LinkedIn last month, I was able to partner with a friend who I hadn't been in contact with for years on a. Or on a project he's working on. So, I mean, that's going to end up being like, they went out and raised a million dollars in funding. That's kind of cool. No, you didn't win, but, hey, that's kind of a bigger win.

[B]

That is a bigger win.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Then random Internet people clicking follow on your profile. Yes. Much bigger wins.

[A]

Yeah. And so I think that some we can go through more of these wins because I think they're just so fun to look at. But I think that is the biggest. The most powerful part of this is, like, the connections you're making, the friendships you're building, and just the people you get to see and talk to and do this alongside.

[B]

Yeah, there's a networking element involved, but it's all. It's not like the, you know, the BNI kind of sort of kind of icky networking, like the. That goes with that word. This is, like, not great. Hey, these are actually, like, cool people who are trying to do the same thing. We are, like, grow their audiences, grow their newsletters and their content. And they are. They're good people to know, and they're. They're supportive, and maybe a collaboration comes from it, or maybe they become a client, or maybe you become their client. Or a subscriber to their newsletter, who knows? But I think ultimately, like you said, it comes down to building these relationships and getting to know some interesting people in the space and you never know where that can lead.

[A]

And I think with, with how much I keep hearing people saying they're burnt out on social media, like, I don't think I would recommend this route right now unless you're like really excited about a platform. But honestly, I feel like YouTube or, I don't know, maybe even Instagram if you're willing, would be good to do this. But YouTube is just, it lasts longer. It's evergreen. LinkedIn. Yeah, they're starting to show posts that are like a couple weeks old, but it's not anywhere near the, the lifespan of a YouTube video. So I think if I were personally thinking about where I would put my energy it more on something like YouTube or just like creating better newsletter content and partnering with people like one on one.

[B]

Yeah, I agree. And I think even if you are posting YouTube videos and you're trying to go there, you still need to promote this and get people to watch those things and let people know that it exists. And yes, you can rely a little bit on the YouTube algorithm, you know, to show it to people, but that can become, that content, can become what you post on LinkedIn. That can become like your LinkedIn content. Right. And I think that was one of my big takeaways was focusing on kind of that keystone cornerstone content, longer form, typically those insanely valuable pieces of content, if you will, that are going to really move the needle for you when it comes to getting people to read, retaining subscribers like they're opening, they're reading, they're like, wow, this is great content. I definitely want to read the next one and even potentially sharing it with other people. If we focus on that, then we all already have a, we've got good content that people are enjoying, that they're reading, that they're potentially sharing. And then we could pull from that content and then post it on LinkedIn. So it's like I feel like doing a social media growth challenge. If you don't already have this kind of backlog of this high quality content, whether it's video or written or whatever, it might be audio, like Adam from our, from our community has. He pulls all of his content from his audio podcast. If you don't already have that, then doing a challenge like this might not be the best first step in trying to grow an audience. So that might sound obvious, but it's, it's just Becoming clearer and clearer to me. CJ Gustafson has mentioned it before where he won't take a meeting before 1pm and I know we've talked about this, but this just like keeps coming back into my head that you have to have this really good quality content to share so people will actually want to subscribe and read and share it with other people.

[A]

He says I won't take any calls before 1:00 clock because I need to focus on my writing and my podcasting. Otherwise people won't find me interesting enough to have phone calls with me after one o'. Clock. That makes so much sense. And it was like a little self deprecating humor. But like that's a great way to put it.

[B]

Yes it is. And I that's why where I felt like every morning when I was getting on and this isn't necessarily the best way to do it, this is the way I was doing it. Do not recommend every morning, like what am I going to write about today for LinkedIn? And it's like no, no, no, no. This is like backwards. You should be creating that, that quality content first and pulling from it and then having something that you can add to LinkedIn on. So I think there's something about on this one. Well, I was just gonna say there's something you said about using short form content to iterate and get feedback and ideas, see what resonates with people. I totally see the valid point, but when you already know that your audience is subscribed to you for a certain topic or your authority in a space, or you are an expert in some space, then I think you can pull your content from the longer form stuff and then use it for the written as opposed to just pumping out daily things that may not go anywhere.

[A]

I'm still going to push back though.

[B]

Push back, push back.

[A]

I have 70 deep dives and this was still extremely hard for me to do. And so yes, it's probably like a mental barrier, but there is something to be said about that of like people are just like, oh yeah, repurpose stuff. I'm like, yeah, but like what, what do I repurpose? How do I repurpose it? Like how do I, I don't know. And if I had some better planning of actually putting the post together before this happened, I probably wouldn't have been scrambling every morning and then, you know, completely fell off the wagon afterwards.

[B]

So.

[A]

Yeah, but it's, it's, it sounds easier that way, but I also don't know that that is the only like I Don't know. I don't know. Like, is it even worth it is.

[B]

But even worth it.

[A]

Create the long form piece. Yes, that is super valuable. Necessary, et cetera. But is it even worth it to go back and try and like, force it into a LinkedIn box?

[B]

I see what you're saying.

[A]

That's where I struggle.

[B]

Yeah. I'm trying to remember all the time that most of the stuff that I've published, long form or short form, most of the people following me or subscribed to my newsletter have not seen. So coming at it from that lens, since you published your first, you know, eight, ten dozen deep dives, you've grown so dramatically that if you reshared, some of those people will be like, I never knew this even existed. Right. So pulling the content from there, I don't see. I guess I don't see the harm or the reason not to. But if, if it's a mental barrier, you're like, I don't know how this fits into relevancy in someone's algorithm today I think you could do it and pull a lesson from there. But I, I totally get what you're saying with this mental block of I don't know how this works or how this makes sense or where this fits or what the point of posting it is if it's not driving people somewhere.

[A]

Well, and it's not just that. It's like, okay, so these are 5,000 word articles. What am I pulling? Where am I going? Like, am I. Am I doing an outline of the full piece? Am I just pulling one part of it? I don't know. And I'm sure it's just an experimental thing of like, figuring that out, but I just, I don't know. The results I'm seeing aren't exactly. It doesn't lead me to want to spend time on it. I will say that I'd rather take that piece and repurpose it into a newsletter or update it and repost it and send it out via email or something like that. So, yeah, or maybe turn it into a video where I, like, explain the whole thing.

[B]

What did you think about. We just had Adam Shibley, I believe is how you pronounce his last name in from the Growth Reverse Pro community. Come and actually do a session in the community for us on how he has this like 12 week content flywheel where he repurposes his content. How did you. Did that give you ideas or inspiration or anything to repurpose content?

[A]

No. I don't know. Like, in the moment, I Wasn't thinking about it in the Len the lens of my content. So maybe that's. I need to go back and like re listen to it in that state of mind. But I mean, it was a great idea and like the way he pulls out pieces of it and like shares them 12 weeks later I think is super smart. But it was more of like podcast to newsletter and then he shares stuff on social media. I don't know. I mean, what, what did you take away from that?

[B]

I took away the. It kind of exactly what I was saying before where like Adam would be somebody who would be able to just absolutely crush this 30 day challenge just in. Not necessarily like, I'm not saying he would win it, but I'm saying for having content where a lot of people get hung up on, I don't know what to post today or I've run out of ideas or I'm falling off the wagon, he would not have that problem. Right. He has two or three posts a day that he's just sourced from his podcast that he published 12 weeks ago. He goes, Today is week 12. I'm going to go back to week one and see what I published that day. There's my post and I'm going to post it. So he doesn't overthink it, which I think is actually brilliant in some ways. Like, it's so simple. Just, you know, post. A lot of this is consistency. Yes, it does have to be good and has to resonate, but it's working for him. He's getting clients from it. He's getting new listeners, new downloads. He's had over a million downloads on his podcast, so there's something to it.

[A]

I think his, his platform is very underrated and he was in the challenge, but he was the only guy on threads, so nobody knew he was in there.

[B]

That's right.

[A]

But I love, I love his approach because yes, he says he gets clients, he gets customers. And the best part is like, you look at his post and you're like, how are these working? You're getting like four likes, but if one of those people is a potential customer, who cares if it's 4 likes if you're gonna get paid for it? So.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I mean, if you get one like, and that one person turns into a client and that's the ultimate goal of your content, then 100% hit rate, it gets working.

[A]

Totally.

[B]

Yeah, totally.

[A]

I think, yeah. I think we get so bogged down with these follower counts, which makes me hate that we used followers as like the metric for winning But I don't know, it was just too. It was too hard to do, like, subscribers or anything like that. Cause I can't see those numbers. I'd have to get them, like, submitted, if you will.

[B]

But that would be. That would be challenging. A lot of self reporting would have to go on and all that stuff.

[A]

Yeah. As we're having this conversation, I'm thinking that. I think there is a. Something deeper. Like, we all say, I don't know what to post, I don't want to repurpose, I don't. All that stuff. I don't know if that's actually true. I think there is a lot of mental barriers that happen where it's not like, I don't know how to take my deep dive and put it into a LinkedIn post. It's more of like, is this good enough? Are people gonna think this is horrible? And even after going through all that, I think there's still some of that for me. So I don't know, maybe it's just I'm not consistent enough, so I don't see the results that I'd want to see for it. And so that's why I don't stick with it. But yeah, Yeah. I mean, I didn't see a ton of results until halfway through the challenge, and then it spiked. And then, I think, you know, I didn't follow through after the 30 days. I fell off at the end of September. So I don't know, there's something to be said about, like, hitting momentum. And then you're like, wait, maybe like, let me pump the brakes here. And it's like, well, why? This is what you wanted, right?

[B]

Yeah. Yeah. So do you remember why the impetus to this challenge, what that was?

[A]

Because I haven't been posting. No, we were talking about.

[B]

What was it you were reviewing the first six months of how you grew your newsletter.

[A]

Oh, yes.

[B]

And it was from posting all the time, right?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

When you were. You were like, almost dumb enough not to know better. Right. Like, and I don't mean that as an insult. I just mean, like, you're so naive and new and, like, excited and motivated. So I think that comes back to what you're just saying about this mental block. It's like, now I'm deep into it and I've got this curse of knowledge, or whatever you want to call it, imposter syndrome, where it's like, well, yeah, I've written about this, but is it any good? Or will people actually like it when in the beginning you're just like, Hey, I don't really know what I'm talking about, but I deep did a deep dive on these people and here's what I found and I'm sharing it and people are like, wow, this is great. So I think that's, it's funny to, to think about the reason we started this and what, what do you think?

[A]

I think, I think, yeah, I agree with you. I think there's some level of, like, the audience has grown and so that makes it harder to like, put out meh content and like, maybe that's the wrong approach to this. I also think there's something to. I was growing on Twitter and Twitter is a very built in, public style place, whereas LinkedIn, I feel like you can post once a day, maybe twice a day, and that's it. And the Twitter just felt so much more community oriented and LinkedIn feels very like boxed and siloed and so I struggle to stick with it because, I don't know, I feel like I find my people and then I don't ever see them again. And then I'm like, wait, where'd they go?

[B]

On LinkedIn, yeah.

[A]

Whereas on Twitter I feel like it's easier to like, keep track of people that you were engaging with and enjoyed their content, that kind of thing. So I don't know, it's a mix.

[B]

Damn algorithms.

[A]

Right?

[B]

Yeah, I hear, guys, I hear that. I think, yeah, I, I'd be curious to see, like, you say, like Twitter, you could just kind of post whatever you wanted whenever you wanted to some degree. It didn't matter. You didn't feel bad if you, you had three tweets in a day or 12 tweets in an hour. A lot of that was serving the algorithm and helping you in a lot of ways. Right. Whereas I, I can see where the hesitance comes on LinkedIn. And I'm curious to challenge what happens if I post like 3 days, 3 times a day for like a week. But, like, what would happen? Am I actually gonna get punished by the algorithm? I wonder what, what would come of that?

[A]

I don't know. Try it out, see what happens.

[B]

Um, yeah. Okay, so that's. Unless you have some more dad.

[A]

No, I'm just scrolling back through Twitter and I'm like, I just love this interface more and I feel like it was faster. Like LinkedIn. You post something and like, you don't get the dopamine hit until like 10, 20, maybe an hour in with Twitter, it was like almost immediate. There'd be like, like, like, like, or something like that So I have to wonder if that. Yeah. If that helped me stay consistent there. I don't know.

[B]

Yeah, probably.

[A]

Thanks for the therapy session, Dylan.

[B]

You're welcome. So one of, one of the questions I've written down here is will we do this again?

[A]

Well, after we just said all that, I don't know. I love the, I love the concept of a challenge. I love getting people together and working towards a goal. But I don't know that social media is the goal.

[B]

I think you know that it's not the goal. Yeah, yeah, but what if there's a content challenge that we could do more like. Yeah, we should probably not brainstorm this on live on the podcast. But I guess there's something to what we're both saying where for me, what I realized was like, I need to actually create the content worth sharing on social media first before I just try to like create something for social media. So that's where my head is going is like a, not a 30 day challenge necessarily because you don't want to publish like a daily long form piece of content, but something along those lines where it's like, okay, let's, let's focus on the content that's really gonna actually move the needle that we can then pull from to publish on social media where we want to.

[A]

Yeah, I think either that or do like a subscriber type of challenge where it's not, there's no leaderboard. We're not trying to like capture everybody's growth. But I've been listening to a lot of James Clear content lately and he keeps talking about, um, instead of outcome based goals of like, I wanna hit 10,000 subscribers, think of like input based goals of like, I'm a writer or I'm the type of person that writes every day. And so maybe that could be 250 words, maybe you don't publish it. But I'm wondering if there's something of focusing on subscriber growth. Whereas inputs or I'll share like 10 ways that I think you get your first a hundred subscribers and have at it. We'll do a seven day challenge. Justin Moore recently did a sponsorship challenge and it was a seven day challenge. And he said it was great because it was short enough that people stayed focused, they were interested, but it was long enough that they actually got a result. So I have to wonder if there's something around that. Let's get your next thousand subscribers or a hundred subscribers or whatever the number is.

[B]

Doesn't that conflict with what you just said about doing the inputs though? Focusing on that.

[A]

Yeah. Right. So back to that. I think if there are three main ways that people should try to grow their newsletter. Right. Like, three things that I think can really help you get there. Maybe it's like, pick one of those and do that for seven days. Or maybe we pick one. Like, we tried to do the cross promotions challenge of, like, partnering with other newsletters, and that just turned into the 30 days of growth and whatever it wasn't. So maybe it's something like that or. I don't know.

[B]

Okay, well, we got a bit to think about.

[A]

If you have ideas, let us know.

[B]

Yeah. The aim would be the January 1, 2026 sort of thing. Turn of the calendar. That's what we did last year. Not guaranteed, but I know that's what we were eyeing up right now, but. So we've got a little bit of time to think about this. But any.

[A]

Maybe seven days to. Maybe it's not subscriber growth. Maybe it's like optimizing or cleaning your list or, I don't know, cleaning up your kid account or something.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

For those people who have 9,000 tags like, I do.

[B]

Yes. Yeah, that could help. My last question is, what would make this challenge a success in your mind? I think you talked about what made it a success, but I have this written down. So I'm just gonna ask you what would make this challenge a success?

[A]

The one that we just did?

[B]

Yeah. Or. Or a future challenge, even.

[A]

Honestly, I just think get getting people moving. Like, there's something to be said about momentum and, like, if you can just get over the hump of, like, doing the thing a few times in a row. Like, I think there's so much power in that because we get ourselves stuck and we're like, oh, it's gonna be so hard. Like, even, okay, this is like a personal thing, but I hate making phone calls to the point where, like, I will not do it. And so I will put off calling people back for weeks because I'm like. Or, like, making a doctor's appointment, forget about it. I'm like, oh, it's going to be so bad. And then, like, you actually do it and it takes 60 seconds and you're like, why did I put that off for two weeks?

[B]

Yep.

[A]

So I think there is something, like, similar in the business space where it's like, oh, this seems so hard, but it's. It's really not. You just gotta hit publish or open the thing or start writing or whatever it is.

[B]

Absolutely. I mean, I think that's why, like, ship 30 for 30 was. So I don't. Such a game changer for a lot of people is because it's like you're gonna write something short, but you're gonna publish it that day and then you do it for 30 days. And to some degree it didn't really matter what you wrote. It was the fact that you were actually like spurred into action to do it. Yeah, you don't want to just write and publish trash, but you. The point was like to get that writing muscle and that habit built in where you're doing it every day and thinking about it as well. Like actually thinking about what could be, what you could create content from or what was interesting, what was a good story, you could share, that sort of thing. I think getting your mind in that, in that headspace or getting into the habit of like thinking about those things in your day to day life, or when you're online on LinkedIn, whether you're on YouTube, whether you're on whatever website you're on and thinking about what can I learn from this? Or is this for sharing? Or do I have an opinion on it? Or does this like, is this a signal for something that I've already written or does it validate something I've already been thinking about? So I think that can be also just like a, a really important headspace that we can get into or that we should get into if we want to do more stuff like this.

[A]

Yeah, I agree. I think I would like to call out some people's wins if we can. Okay. One guy got retweeted by a top figure in his niche, which was this other guy has like hundreds of thousands of followers. This is day one. I think it was early Tara got her first substack subscriber and she actually has now I think she's over like 200 or 300 in the last 45 days, which is cool. Yeah, awesome. I know Caitlin actually posted something outside of her norm, which was like more personal, but got like went crazy viral for her. Like hundreds and maybe even over a thousand likes on that post, which was pretty wild. Fat Chan actually hit a MRR goal so like made a certain amount of money in a month. On day three, like after just posting for four consecutive days, closed a client, which is pretty cool. I know Becky said she actually grew her newsletter by 87 and a half percent, which is pretty cool over the last month. Do you remember any good ones?

[B]

Somebody got shouted out by former colleagues as well, which, which wasn't like a viral win, but it really meant a lot to her. I think that was Rachel.

[A]

Yeah. Rachel got shouted out by two top execs at Adobe.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Which is like, that's freaking awesome. Yeah. I'm just like, I'm so excited to see these because it's so fun that people took this and actually started building relationships and doing the thing and learning and experimenting, getting subscribers, making money and just growing their business.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. It is really cool. Really cool. Seeing that you had a hand in that. Just in like bringing them together at the very. At the very least. Right. Is. Is pretty fun. It's pretty awesome.

[A]

Yeah. That feels pretty cool.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I guess we should call out our winners at this point.

[B]

We should, huh? Yeah. Yeah, definitely.

[A]

Yeah. So the winners of the 30 days of growth, Alejandra Rojas, came in third place. She grew her following from 2,270 to just about 2,700, which was pretty crazy. About 19% growth, which in a 30 day time span is pretty crazy. Danny Naz, who I've been interacting with since the early days of Growth in Reverse on Twitter, he grew his followers by over 1200. And then Tom Orbach, who is a member of the Growth Reverse Pro community, I love having him in there. He always shares such good stuff.

[B]

And podcast. Sorry, I was gonna say podcast alumni as well. He's been on podcast. Podcast, yeah.

[A]

Yeah, so that was a good one. He grew his followers by a whopping subs. 3200. That's crazy.

[B]

That's more than 100 a day.

[A]

That's more than 100 a Day.

[B]

Should I get my graphing calculator? Make sure that math is right?

[A]

Log cosine. Yes.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

So congrats to those three. Excited to share their work in an upcoming newsletter. Maybe you'll see us in another challenge here in a few months.

[B]

And if this sounds like fun, let us know if it's something you'd be interested in. And you know, we. I think it. It is just a. You can like dive really deep into this sort of stuff, but at the end of the day, it can be just a fun thing to do. Just a kick in the butt to post on social. If that's what you want to do and you. You have the wherewithal and the mindset to do it, then yeah, I. It doesn't have to be like this huge strategic endeavor. It could just be something you want to get more proactive with. So this is a good excuse to do it.

[A]

Yeah, these are fun. I just like seeing all the things people are doing and who's interacting with who Alejandra and Laura, who was also in their challenge, actually met in person to come to one of our co working events, because we were doing those every Monday too.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And I just. They both showed up and I was like, hey, guys, this is fun. And they're like, we're actually in the same coffee shop. And I was like, what? And they, like, turned their cameras around, and I was like, oh, my gosh.

[B]

And they had never. They didn't know each other in real life. They had never met before. They. They had come together because of this challenge and then actually literally came together in real life because of the challenge, which is really cool.

[A]

Yeah, that's super fun.

[B]

And that goes back to the thing you were saying earlier about the power of this is connecting with. With people too. So there's a lot of. A lot of additional benefits than just, like, growing your followers.

[A]

I want to do something like this again. Even if it's not social growth. Maybe it will be. Maybe I'll come back to it in three months and be like, all right, let's do it again.

[B]

Yeah, it could be a two part. Maybe you do a two part challenge where it's like, okay, build out your content library for 30 days and then try a social growth project. You know, maybe not the next 30 days, but maybe it is so that people actually have some good ammo to. To use. Like me. I'm really talking to myself here. So be able to get ammo to use for their. Their content if for the following 30 days. That could be kind of fun.

[A]

That would be fun. Yeah. Maybe we don't even post. Maybe it's like, let's just build out content that we can post.

[B]

And if there's a way you need to keep yourself accountable, we could figure that out too. But yeah, that would be. That could be fun. That'd be valuable.

[A]

I think so too. All right, we'll brainstorm it more.

[B]

Okay. Should we call it?

[A]

Yeah, let's call it. I think that's. That's a good one. Always good to reflect on stuff like this.

[B]

It is. It is.

[A]

All right, see you next time.