Building an audience: A lesson from the younger me

When it comes to building an audience as a solo-entrepreneur, the younger me was much smarter, much more in tuned with himself. These days, I operate 95% of my life from the left side of my brain, analyzing and taking a data driven, logical approach. While necessary in many respects, I need to make more decisions using my intuition … that’s how one of my first YouTube videos published 14 years ago received over 400,000 views:

(I admit that I feel a little embarrassed sharing the above video!)

I was 20 years old at the time. I was getting into parkour and tricking, and after learning how to back flip, I landed the “butterfly twist”. For this martial arts move, I had practiced several hours a day — with a community of other aspiring trickers — and after many face plants and overcoming of my fears, I recorded a tutorial that I then uploaded to this thing called “YouTube”.

Back then, the number of views did not matter to me. I was just documenting my progress, sharing with the world, and most importantly: helping others on a similar journey.

That’s it.

I’m sure there are more sophisticated ways to gain an audience, a more strategic approach. But, I think I’ll start with just continuing to 1) help others and 2) be part of a community of link-minded people

So, what are some ways in which you are building and engaging with your audience?

Come chat with me on Twitter @memattchung