It was back in January 2021.

I remember this very clearly because my elder daughter, Avery, was born that month.

I had been writing online for 2 months at that point, so I was getting a hang of it. My audience was growing slowly. I met so many new buddies who also started their journey at the same time. Let's just say the space was pretty hot.

One day I was chatting with a friend who was starting out just like me. She told me "Kevon, my first paid product is going to be a <Creator Starter Guide>!"

I'm usually a nice guy, but when it comes to moments where being direct is needed, I can be blunt.

So I told her:

1. The topic is too flat
2. You have no track record to back you up
3. You will make some sales, but you won't go far

I was early in my journey too so who was I to say that? But my entrepreneurial experiences in the past helped me filter out these definite deadends — paths you don't need to take to know they don't work.

I forgot how that turned out for her. She disappeared after 6 months, so maybe things didn't work out.

I took a very different approach — I only wanted to create something if it could position me as the go-to person for that topic. I also didn't need everyone to love me. It would be best if some hated me and some loved me.

That's what reaction looks like. What traction looks like.

I went on to create the free Build in Public guide that made me the "Build in Public guy". Google Analytics tells me that almost 50,000 people read it in the last few years.

I also created Making Twitter Friends email course that made me the "Twitter Friends guy". I didn't spend much time promoting it and it brought 3,000 students into my world and email list in the first 18 months.

But I'll be honest with you. Life is always changing, so what we care about is always changing too. Building in Public and Making Twitter Friends are no longer my focus now, so I'm figuring out the next topic I can own.

You can wait for the perfect topic and build your signature asset, but you might be waiting for years. Why not get to work and keep moving?

I'm telling you this early story of mine because I think this is what growing with leverage looks like — building an asset that creates compounding organic growth for you.

If you make a free thing but you need to actively promote it on social media, then that's not leverage at all.

In the last few years, many people have asked me how they know they are not growing with leverage. I'd say it comes down to:

• When you meet someone new, you have to explain a lot about what you do
• If someone wants to tell a friend about you, they have no idea what to share so they just throw them a website or social media profile
• When your new email subscribers are growing very slowly

I was able to get traction because a lot of people tell their friends about a guy named Kevon and send them the link to the Build in Public guide. The rest is history.

Marketing on the Internet is so tough because competition is fierce and attention is scarce. The only way to stand out is when you own a topic. When people can recommend you with fewer than 10 words, you grow.

The interesting thing is that it doesn't take rocket science to figure this out. You need to ideate (a lot) and challenge yourself to see whether the topic of the asset has the potential to become the go-to resource and help you grow with leverage.

This framework helped me become known for a number of topics. I'm forever grateful because, otherwise, I wouldn't be here sharing with you.

This is what you'll learn if you join the "Ship Your Email Course Engine in 4 Weeks" cohort starting on Oct 8.

I will give you this framework so you can come up with the right topic for scale.

​Click here to see what you'll get done in 4 weeks​

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Cheers,
Kevon

P.S. This is a launch week for the email course cohort. If you don't want to receive these launch emails, click here to be excluded.​