In 2020, people knew Sahil Bloom as the 'Twitter Thread' guy. Now, he has a million followers on Twitter alone.

His newsletter, The Curiosity Chronicle, with 700,000 subscribers earns over $70K monthly, and his creator business has an ARR of over $10 million. He also invests in startups.

Sahil worked 80-100 hours a week in his job. He earned good money, so never questioned his life choices, until Covid struck.

When he finally reflected, he felt lost and unhappy. He wanted more from life, but wasn’t sure how.

Table of Contents:

1. Life Before Content Creation

2. How Sahil Started Creating

3. How Sahil Started on Twitter

4. First Big Money

5. Sahil’s Advice for Beginners

6. Sahil’s SIDE (Strengths, Interests, Demand, Execution)

7. How Beginners Can Apply the Lessons

1. Life Before Content Creation

Sahil grew up in Boston. His father is a Harvard professor and mother is an entrepreneur. His mother used to write a lot. Sahil listened to her stories while growing up.

For a long time, he thought he was going to be a professional baseball player.

Sahil went to Stanford University for an undergraduate degree in economics and sociology and played in the college baseball team as a pitcher.

He gave up a grand slam on ESPN to lose the super regional championship game in 2012. His entire family watched the match. These experiences of public failure taught him to be comfortable with failures.

After earning his bachelor’s degree, Sahil felt unsure about his future. So, he worked as a graduate assistant coach while studying for his master’s degree.

A mentor connected him with Jesse Rogers, founder of Altamont Capital Partners. Jesse hired him as an analyst straight out of college.

Most funds hire experienced bankers and consultants, but Altamont took a different approach, hiring analysts straight out of college.

Sahil was one of three in the first group of analysts at Altamont, joining in 2014.

He felt lost when he joined.

"I sometimes felt like I didn't belong but it pushed me to improve every day." - Sahil

But he quickly found a way to be helpful by taking on tasks his boss disliked.

This focus helped him move up to be an Associate in 2016 and Vice President by 2018.

Sahil worked 80-100 hours a week and traveled extensively for work.

2. How Sahil Started Creating

Before the world knew about the entrepreneur in him, Sahil had a big Instagram account. He would share his travel pics with his wife. He grew it to 25K followers but deleted it due to mental health concerns.

He was an avid reader. His email list comprised 20 family members and friends. He would send them what he was reading once a month.

It reminds me of Dickie Bush who started a newsletter to share what he learned weekly.

When Covid struck, Sahil was no more traveling for work. He felt stuck at home with no social life and had a lot of free time.

For the first time in 6 years, Sahil questioned his life goals. This reminds me of Kieran Drew who felt shaken about his life choices during Covid.

Sahil knew he loved writing. He wanted a place to distill his thoughts and get more clarity about his interests. He turned to Twitter.

3. How Sahil Started on Twitter

Sahil began using Twitter in 2011 while playing baseball to share updates about big games.

In May 2020, he wrote his first thread when he had only 500 followers. It was a beautifully crafted story to explain market forces.

This was the thread.

He knew it was a well-written thread. But no one would discover him because he was a small account.

So, he posted it under the comments of over 50 big accounts, hoping to get noticed.

The Beginner’s Luck

Chamath Palihapitiya, a venture capitalist who had 300K followers, gave a shout-out to Sahil’s thread, skyrocketing his small following overnight.

Here’s the tweet.

Sahil felt motivated to continue writing insightful threads. He introduced himself in a tweet, saying his passion was spreading financial education through storytelling.

Here’s the thread.

In 2020, threads were not popular on Twitter. So, Sahil’s stories on finance stood out.

Sahil grew to 5000 followers by Aug’20. He called his dad at 5000 to say he got famous.

People supported Sahil on the way for the value he provided. A single shout-out post by Raoul Pal, a former fund manager, got Sahil 8000 follows.

He thanked all the people with a warm tweet for supporting him. Here’s the list of top accounts which helped fast-track his growth initially.

This shows if your content is excellent, people will rally behind you with their support.

As Sahil branched into writing about mental models and personal development, his follower base grew faster. He hit 50K by Oct’20 and 75K by Dec’20.

He found that finance-based accounts would peak at 100K followers. So, he broadened his range of topics to get bigger on Twitter.

4. First Big Money

In late 2020, Sahil noticed there was an advantage in writing quality threads because no one was doing it.

He had invested in some startups, and their founders wanted help with building their brand.

Sahil started Consulting

Sahil started consulting to help the founders. He gave them advice on how to create content to build a personal brand. He charged them $5,000 a month, starting with 5 clients.

They were mostly startup founders he either knew or had invested in. That’s how the first big money came for Sahil.

How the Newsletter Started?

In 2020, the Thread format was inconvenient to read on Twitter. People asked Sahil to send out his threads as emails.

So, in Jan 2021, Sahil started his newsletter and named it ‘Allegory of Finance’. It contained his popular threads.

Sahil partnered with Jack Butcher for his impressive visuals.

In May 2021, Sahil renamed his newsletter to ‘The Curiosity Chronicle’ to write content original content on broader topics.

Every Friday, he would send out the newsletter with 5 pieces of content, including a quote, a tweet, an article, a podcast and a bonus.

The Agency

In Jun 2021, Sahil launched a course on Maven with Julian Shapiro on audience-building. Here’s the related tweet.

400 students joined the course. Half the course was about how to write good threads and how to write for Twitter.

In mid-2021, some clients approached him, expressing their struggle with content creation, as they didn't have the people and resources for it.

Sahil connected his course students with the clients, thus starting his ghostwriting agency.

In any agency business, the key is to create price arbitrage, where you charge a client more than it costs you.

Sahil found success by charging startups or brands more for the service than what he paid to deliver it. This strategy helped him scale his business rapidly.

In August 2021, as Sahil monetized his creator business, he quit his position as the Vice President and became an advisor for the same firm.

Sahil also invested in multiple early-stage startups in the tech world.

In January 2022, he started SRB Ventures, a $10 million Venture Fund.

What next?

By May 2022, Sahil hit 600K followers on Twitter. To diversify, he started on LinkedIn and Instagram.

As he thought about the creator economy, Sahil wanted a scalable, stable business that didn’t rely on making content every day for money. He didn’t want to sell products, coach others, or rely on sponsorships.

He looked into his problems as a creator. He used to pay for design, video editing, and other operations.

He wondered, "How can I turn these costs into profits?"

That's when he got the idea from the Amazon model. Amazon used to spend lots of money on cloud computing services, so they started their own service - Amazon Web Services. Now, AWS makes over $80 billion every year.

He thought he could do the same thing - help start companies that offer design, video-editing, back-end newsletter operations, and more.

Newsletter growth

Sahil started with the Newsletter. In late 2022, he was at 125K email subscribers and wanted to grow faster.

He tweeted in September 2022, inquiring about newsletter growth services.

That tweet connected him with Nathan Barry, ConvertKit's founder.

By the end of 2022, he hired a newsletter growth agency, Paperboy Studios and his growth skyrocketed. His subscriber count went from 134K to 400K in 5 months.

Have a look at the impressive growth.

Sahil partnered with Nathan Barry and Paperboy Studios to use his growth playbook to gain new clients.

Social Media Growth

Next, Sahil set up a plan to create a personal branding and social media marketing company, Alto Studios.

Alto hit $1Mn ARR in 6 months of operations while working in stealth mode.

Short-form Video

Sahil used to pay $5000 to an agency to create short-form clips from his video podcasts.

He teamed up with his friend Hunter Hammonds to create an agency to create videos in-house and offer it as a service.

Getting leads is the biggest problem for any new agency. Sahil didn’t want to spend on online ads for leads.

That’s when he came up with an idea, which I think is going to be the hottest monetization trend in the creator economy.

Sahil knew attention has moved from being centralized to highly decentralized today. As such, reaching out to people in a specific niche is easy without spending a ton on ads. The idea is to partner with a mega influencer in the product niche.

So for his short-form video service, Sahil partnered with Sam Parr and Codie Sanchez. These influencers became the face of the brand, while Sahil’s team managed the backend.

They named the brand, ViralCuts - a premium short-video-editing service.

It already hit close to $1 million ARR within the first month of launch.

Here’s the tweet from the co-founder.

Long-form Video

Sahil launched a long-form video production service, HeyFriends!, with Ali Abdaal, a popular YouTuber.

It generated $2 million monthly revenue leads on launch day.

Here’s the announcement tweet by Ali.

Sahil gathered all his creator-led businesses under SRB Holdings.

It's interesting Sahil hasn't put his face on any of these brands. But why?

Because when the creator partners are the faces, they are fully involved with the brand.

Observe how the brand HeyFriends! reflects the airy and simplistic brand image of Ali Abdaal.

Rationale for partnership

Sahil wanted a business where he didn't have to work every day.

He was not good at managing people, so he avoided building huge teams.

Instead, he wanted to partner with specific experts so he could focus on what he was good at:

1. Creating things

2. Being in front of people

3. Spending time with people.

Sahil's agency partners were excellent at handling the backend systems.

And the mega-influencers solved the biggest problem of any agency - lead generation. Because they already have a huge audience willing to pay.

5. Sahil’s Advice for Beginners

Join a community

When you are starting out, join communities of like-minded people.

Your fellow members may become your future business partners as you grow.

For example, when Sahil connected with Sam Parr, Sam was working in The Hustle and didn’t have a big audience. “It can start with just one direct message” - Sahil.

However, don’t treat it as a transaction. Instead, focus on the spontaneous sharing of value. There's a shared struggle of being in the mud together, and this bond lasts forever when you go through it together.

Find highest ROI work

Prioritize your tasks and spend your time on the top ones.

For Sahil, his highest ROI areas are relationships, insights and leads for business.

Be a positive-sum thinker

Help people who are starting. They will stand for you.

Sahil helped Blake Burge when he was a budding account on Twitter. Today, Blake has got 417K followers.

Adapt fast

You don’t need long-term plans. Focus on the upcoming months, learn and adapt fast.

Sahil would plan only for 1 month when he started. He was ready for the rapid change.

Chase your curiosity

See every interaction as an opportunity to learn and grow.

“My goal is to never let my child-like curiosity fade,” Sahil said.

Sell less to grow fast

If you want to grow fast, find creative ways of selling.

Most creators are always introducing new products, trying to sell to their followers.

But Sahil doesn't need his audience to buy anything after reading his content.

“If I don't have to constantly sell people some new product or course, I can grow my newsletter and my social platforms much faster,” said Sahil.

6. Sahil’s SIDE

Any creator can succeed when they get their SIDE right. It’s a simple framework beginners can use to start creating online.

SIDE = Strengths + Interests + Demand + Execution

Let’s look at Sahil’s SIDE.

Strengths

• Curiosity

• Love for learning

• Finance and investment

• Networking

Interests

• Personal development

• Writing

• Entrepreneurship

• Storytelling

Demand

• Simplification of Finance concepts

• Curated personal development ideas

• Creator growth services

• Ghostwriting for founders

• Startup funding

Execution Milestones

• Started threads on Twitter (2020)

• Started Newsletter ‘The Curiosity Chronicle’ (2021)

• Helped 5 founders build their personal brand (2021)

• Started ghostwriting agency (2021)

• Created SRB Ventures (2022)

• Started social media growth agency, Alto Studios (2023)

• Started Newsletter growth agency, Paperboy (2023)

• Started short-form video agency, ViralCuts (2023)

• Started long-form video agency, HeyFriends! (2023)

Pause here for a moment.

Think about your SIDE. Write on paper or digital notes.

Use it as a starting point to pick what you want to create.

If you need my help in figuring out your SIDE to find a niche that excites you, send me a message on Twitter (X) for a free 20-minute call.

Click here to find me.

7. How Beginners Can Apply the Lessons

Write evergreen content

Produce more evergreen content for higher return on your time.

Sahil publishes more evergreen content than timely ones. He posts evergreen content on weekends and timely content on weekdays because that’s when people are searching for news.

Increase your luck surface area

Choose a community where you are the dumbest. It's bad for your ego, but you will learn faster. Spend time with optimistic people.

Build in public to get instant feedback to improve. Broaden your network by talking to more strangers. Schedule free time to think creatively. Follow your curiosity.

Sahil’s biggest advantage as a creator was his finance background and his network of entrepreneurs.

Create a consumption habit

Form a daily habit of consumption and note-taking. Distill the information into frameworks and systems, noting insights. Read for at least one hour each day.

Sahil was an avid reader. That’s what made his excellent writing possible.

Consistency

While consistency is a cliche, Sahil still believes it to be the key ingredient in his success. Write daily to improve your craft.

He published at least one piece of long form every week for years and he is proud of that. He didn’t start with the goal of building a business but to share what he learned.

Start with a niche, then expand

A quote from Morgan Housel inspired Sahil - Start writing about ideas that excite you. Sahil’s initial niche was storytelling on finance concepts.

He observed the Finance-Tweet niche saturates at 100K followers. So, he started writing about growth and mental models.