aa-yushi

4+ years into content & growth and i have some major tea/notes to spill. for context: - scaled 2 YT channels from 0 - 100K subs - took an IG page from 0 - 10K followers in 4 months - built video content for founders doing 4–5M+ impressions/month - cut influencer costs by 50% while driving 25% conversions - built a 5,000+ person waitlist, w/o spending a single rs. - worked on website copy, launches, retention, distribution + fundraising content. basically, different versions of: “we have a growth/content problem. figure it out.” here’s what all those reps taught me: 1/ understand the problem before touching the solution - “we need reels” is not a problem statement. - do you need awareness? trust? signups? conversion? - retention? - figure out what needs to move first, the channel comes later. 2/ know your audience ridiculously well - their language > your copywriting - their problems > your content ideas - their behaviour > your assumptions the best insights usually don't come from a brainstorming doc but from talking to users, reading comments, lurking on reddit, looking at search behaviour and noticing what people repeatedly care about. 3/ break the problem down to fundamentals - website isn’t converting ≠ redesign the website. - content isn’t working ≠ post more. - growth is slow ≠ increase distribution. sometimes you have enough traffic and the message sucks. sometimes the message works and distribution sucks. sometimes both are fine and the product isn't converting. *find where the system is actually breaking.* 4/ strategy dies on paper - you can spend 3 weeks making the smartest strategy deck in the world. - or ship 10 experiments and actually learn something. hypothesise > execute > analyse > iterate execution gives you information thinking alone never will. 5/ content + organic distribution are one problem before creating anything, know: - who is this for? - why would they care? - why would they share? - where will this travel? - what do you want them to do next? “we'll figure out distribution after” is usually where good content goes to die. 6/ views are a terrible standalone metric - 1M views can do absolutely nothing for the business. - 10K views from exactly the right people can bring customers, hires, investors or users. - know the outcome you’re optimising for before celebrating the screenshot. 7/ you probably don't need more content ideas. you need more depth - one real audience problem can give you months of content. - go deep on: behaviours + data + misconceptions + stories + mistakes+ opinions + solutions - if you're running out of ideas every week, you probably haven't gone deep enough into the problem yet. 8/ analyse EVERYTHING - why did this hook work? - why did people share this but not that? - why did 100K people watch but nobody click? - why did people click but not convert? - why did the idea everyone loved internally completely die? - every experiment should make the next one smarter. 9/ eventually, reps turn into pattern recognition - after enough campaigns, launches, founders, channels and failed experiments, you stop looking only at outcomes and start seeing the mechanics behind them. - “this company got 2M views doing founder reels” tells you almost nothing. - understand why something worked before copying what they did. 10/ don't be loyal to a format. be loyal to the problem - sometimes the answer is 100 influencers. - sometimes it's one really good founder video. - sometimes it's rewriting the website. - sometimes it's a waitlist campaign. - sometimes you don't need more distribution at all. you just need to say the same thing better. - the channels, formats and algorithms will keep changing. the job stays surprisingly similar: understand → hypothesise → execute → analyse → recognise patterns → repeat. that's pretty much it from my GPT + overthinking + over-explaining brain. with this, aayushi signing off 🫡 p.s. if you also love breaking down content/growth problems and going unnecessarily deep into why tf is this not working? i’d love to chat. dms are open :)

this is huge for distribution. one good long-form video can now become hundreds of clips, distributed by people who aren't even the original creators.

how i'd approach content as an early-stage founder starting from zero: - talk about the problem you solve, not just your product. - pick 2–3 content pillars and stick to them. - share real numbers, customer insights, wins, and failures. - show your face. people connect with people, not logos. - build repeatable series instead of random posts. - spend as much time on distribution as creation. - track conversations, signups, and leads, not just impressions. the goal isn't to post every day. it's to make the right people remember you.

unpopular opinion: work-life balance is overrated when you're just starting your career. you don't have experience, skills, or proof of work yet. but you have time, energy, and the willingness to figure things out. show up early. take ownership. do things nobody asked you to do. make your boss's life easier. you'll learn more by doing that for 6 months than by spending 2 years doing just what's expected of you.

even after all the hype around ramayana, i'm still waiting for this to come to netflix.

6 months since i quit my job, and i've realised that working for yourself is just realising how dumb you were 6 months ago. every 6 months.

i go home for peace & leave to protect it.

as much as i love coming back to my hometown, i love going back to my blr life too.

a founder can have 10k followers and still get 0 business from content, another can have 2k followers and regularly get customer conversations, partnerships, and hiring opportunities. the difference isn't always content quality. it's who the content reaches & what it's designed to achieve. if i were auditing a founder's last 20 posts, i'd put every post into one of 3 buckets: 1. discovery: does this reach people who could actually become customers, partners, or relevant connections? 2. credibility: does this demonstrate what the founder knows, how they think, or what makes their business worth trusting? 3. conversion: does this give an interested person a reason to check out the product, start a conversation, or take the next step? then i'd check 3 things: 1. which bucket gets the most attention? 2. are the right people engaging? 3. which posts have led to actual business conversations or actions? if all your content is designed for reach, don't be surprised when all you get is impressions. every content format should have a job. and that job should connect to something your business actually needs.

every time i’m still reading and processing one of @ryangrowthh posts, he drops another banger.

someone just gift me this please!!!!!

i LOVE what deepinder is building with temple. as someone who overthinks, gets distracted easily, and has 100 things going on in her head, i've always wanted something like this. and i genuinely believe there's a huge market for it. we're at a point where people want to spend less time on screens, escape the constant noise of the internet, and have more space to think, articulate their thoughts, and actually do something with them. when everyone's busy building another AI wrapper or replicating what's already working, it's refreshing to see someone thinking this differently. really rooting for this and excited to see where this go

growing up in jaipur, diwali meant a proper vacation. but in bangalore's startup culture, it's barely 1–2 days off. half the team is on leave, half is working, and nobody really disconnects. why can't we just normalise shutting down for a week and celebrating without feeling guilty about work?

if you're starting a career in content in 2026, don't just learn how to write good posts. learn distribution. - how to research an audience - how to find repeatable content formats - how to turn one idea into 10 assets - how to connect content to business outcomes anyone can generate 30 posts with AI. very few can build an audience that actually converts. THAT'S THE MOAT.

what’s worse: forgetting someone’s name or realising they know yours?

why do i suddenly have 14 things to research the second i decide to sleep?

we're getting really good at creating content and really bad at building brands. no wonder most startup content looks and sounds the same. recently read a piece on subtack around thinking like a creative director, not a feed addict. it put into words something i've been noticing in startup content for a while. here's what i'd take away from it, especially for early-stage founders: 1/ start with a narrative, not a content calendar. - decide what you want your ICP to associate with your brand. - build 2–3 recurring themes that reinforce that message. 2/ create content people can recognise. - build recurring series around your founder's expertise, opinions, and customer problems. - people should recognise your content even without seeing your logo. 3/ stop getting all your ideas from the feed. - spend more time on customer calls, Reddit threads, sales objections, and industry conversations. - your best ideas should come from your market, not your competitors' posts. 4/ think in campaigns, not isolated posts. - pick one core message and build 5–10 pieces around it. - use founder stories, customer experiences, product use cases, and different formats to reinforce the same idea. 5/ measure brand recall, not just impressions. - look at the quality of inbound DMs, comments, and sales conversations. - are people associating your brand with the problem you're trying to solve? 6/ stop turning one viral post into your entire strategy. understand why the idea worked. - explore different angles instead of recycling the same hook and format 20 times. 7/ use trends for distribution, not creative direction. - a trending format can help your content reach more people. - it shouldn't decide what your brand talks about. most startups know exactly what they're posting next week. very few know what they want their audience to remember about them six months from now. that's the difference between running a content calendar and actually building a brand.