1,000 True Weirdos

You’ve heard of the importance of finding ‘1,000 true fans’ for your body of work, right?

There’s some great thinking behind this idea.

There’s also a problem: the way we respond when we hear, “fans”.

When we hear the word “fans”, many of us start thinking about what it means to be worthy of fans. To be the sort of person who has ‘fans’.

…when what we should really be doing, is focusing on those we wish to serve.

What if we didn’t look for ‘1,000 true fans’?

What if, instead, we looked for ‘1,000 true weirdos’?

While ‘fans’ can be intimidating, making you immediately start thinking about yourself and being awesome… ‘weirdos’ makes you immediately start thinking about them and what makes them so niche, so you can go be niche with them.

‘Fans’ makes us think about all the places our fans can come and interact with us, admiring our brilliance.

‘Weirdos’ makes us think about all the places weirdos hang out, so we can come and interact with them, bringing more to the weirdo-party.

‘Fans’ makes us want to schedule more tweets and create more polished content so that they’ll bask in our majesty far and wide.

‘Weirdos’ makes us want to connect with people and engage with their discourse so that they’ll thank us for showing up and miss us if we’re gone.

Pursuing 1,000 true weirdos could be the fastest path to 1,000 true fans.