Nerding out in public is the new thought leadership

You don’t need to build an audience. Just start leaving some breadcrumbs.

Most people optimise for building an audience because they see everyone else trying to do it.

But a smaller group optimises for attracting opportunities.

Two very different things.

If you’re focused on personal branding then you think you need to play the numbers game by chasing reach, engagement, and viral posts. You start writing for the algorithms instead of the people who actually make decisions.

But the people who land jobs before they’re even posted? The ones who attract investors and get unexpected DMs from hiring managers?

They’re not optimising for an audience. They’re optimising for signal.

Signal shows up in the small details: the questions you ask, the references you make, the tools you’re excited about. You don’t need to be an expert — just show your curiosity and thought process in action.

A designer I know got laid off a few months ago. Instead of job-hunting the traditional way, he started posting his AI experiments, nothing complicated at all — small, curiosity-driven in-progress stuff.

Two months later, he had two offers for jobs that never went public.

Hiring managers had been quietly watching.

Because that’s how it actually works.

Most people assume they need a massive following to get opportunities. But attention without direction is useless.

So, a lot of people rack up thousands of followers. But when they need a job or funding? Crickets.

That’s because their brand is built for spectators, not decision-makers.

The ones who get opportunities come to them don’t write to be thought leaders. They just think in public.

They don’t post to sound smart.
They post to clarify their own ideas.

They don’t wait until something is perfect.
They share the half-baked thought, the unfinished experiment, the weird niche curiosity.

And it turns out that those are the most interesting things because we are increasingly looking for authenticity. Who else is interested in the same things I am? Who else is thinking about the same ideas?

No one will ever know if you generate posts with AI about stuff you know nothing about just to get some likes and followers.

If you want likes, optimise for the algorithm.
If you want opportunities, optimise for the people who make decisions.

You don’t need to build a brand.

You just need to nerd out in public.

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I’ve spent a decade helping designers at companies like Netflix, Google, Amazon, and OpenAI navigate their careers, land jobs, get promoted, and make smarter career moves. At On Deck, I built the Design Fellowship. At InVision, I scaled global design communities. Before that, I was a recruiter, helping 100s of designers land roles.

Now, I’ve built something new: The Two-Week Reset: a step-by-step system to break out of job search limbo and land real opportunities. Simply a proven system that I’ve been using for more than a decade. Good market or bad.

🚀 Try it out here → Backchannel

I also run:
✔ Free career navigation & layoff office hours: Small group sessions, every Thursday. Book a spot here
✔ Coho: A peer matching system for senior designers tackling challenges together. Beta waitlist here

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