So, you want to be a content creator?

Hey, would you do me a favor? I’m partnering with Typeform to do a study about what people in tech think of being a manager vs. staying an IC. I’d love to get your perspective! Please share your thoughts→

Everyone wants to be a content creator these days. Or an influencer. Or, if you speak LinkedIn, a thought leader. Personally, the last 2 give me the ick - please never ever call me an influencer.

I get it. Attention feels good. Likes, comments, reposts, follower counts. They all scratch something in our fragile, validation-seeking egos. We live in the attention economy, after all. And to be fair, I’ve encouraged plenty of people to start posting or writing. I genuinely think more people should share what they know.

What I don’t think people see is what it’s actually like on the other side. So if you’ve ever thought about putting yourself out there, here’s how it worked for me (and what no one tells you about being a ‘creator’).

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My personal story

Why I started ‘creating content’

I didn’t start creating content because I want to become some sort of influencer (puke). In fact, if your motivation is to become an influencer, please just don’t.

For me, it actually started after I was a guest on Reforge a few times. It hit me how much valuable knowledge is trapped inside companies. Every team is figuring out things that would help hundreds of other teams, but the lessons are never outside the org. Sometimes they don’t even make it past the team that learned them - they just stay locked away in Slack threads, Notion docs, and people’s heads.

Instead, what does get shared in public is a lot of nonsense. So many people posting online have never actually done the job. They’re throwing out generic career advice or recycled frameworks that sound profound but fall…