There is nothing new under the sun. It has all been done before.
There are several hundred million registered companies globally — backed by millions of angel investors and thousands of venture capital (VC) firms.
Yet, as a founder, you can find yourself building solo. It is a common problem for many founders, creators and builders today.
Creators are also social animals; we do want to be part of a community.
Twitter does help a little; so does Linkedin.
For some of us, social listening isn’t enough; we yearn to tell our own stories. We see the need to shape the narrative. We sense a burning desire to lead.
Hundreds of VCs who write in public are all lifelong students and practitioners of writing and storytelling.
The emerging capitalists of our generation understand that today's influence comes from attention; if no one engages with you, or pays you any time or attention, you don’t exist.
Packy McCormick is one of those emerging writer-investors who understand this universal, time-tested truth way better than the old guard.
Packy’s writing — his voice — comes across as one of the most original, engaging, and empowering among the top VCs who write.
I have become a great admirer and fan of his newsletter, Not Boring, which stands out from the competition with a distinctive “where tech strategy meets pop culture” take on exploding trends in work, innovation, and crypto entrepreneurship.
A good newsletter is first of all a story — useful, engaging, and informative — that entertains and empowers your target audiences.
Packy’s newsletter could serve as a credible role model for all VCs. It certainly serves that role for me.
If you want to start an investment fund today, you have to put yourself out there and start writing consistently, engagingly, delivering top value for free.
When you “hang out” with smart thinkers, builders and investors whether in real life or virtually, you too start wanting to join and shape the larger conversation that matters to you.
You begin to see the point of building your own tribe, and how it can help you make a positive impact even while you’re chasing big, hairy, audacious goals.
Finding My Niche
Starting is often the most difficult thing. The hardest step is always the first.
When I decided to start a newsletter and a podcast in late 2022, I failed to execute it because I wasn’t clear about my niche and target audience.
When you aren’t clear about the end goal, it’s difficult to start or prioritize your time and energy into something as demanding as writing.
These past few months, however, proved to be a tremendous learning experience for me. I was actively reading to identify my niche; it demanded self-introspection, a coming to terms with my own strengths and weaknesses.
You write best when you think best. And the best thinking — the best insights — comes from rigorous and persistent thinking, about a (un)related set of topics, over a long period.
You can get curious, read and think about a lot of things, but the choice of your niche ultimately comes down to your interests, expertise, and beliefs.
When you ask yourself: Where do I have the biggest influence? What do I really control? The answer is most often than not: your time and how you choose to spend it.
As a creative entrepreneur and a business and growth marketing consultant for startups of all shapes and sizes, the only thing I have any control over is which ideas, founders and VCs, I can choose to engage and work with proactively.
As a business consultant, my recent successes in 2022 include helping devise, craft and win the RFP for a $1 Million grant for an AI company, audit and revamp a Shopify store which is part of a $21M brand, develop the GTM for a brand new Web3 marketplace and develop copy and strategy to onboard companies for a global commerce platform.
That’s a lot of mental jujutsu, trust me. Yes, I’m spread too thin. Consulting is hard to productize; forget scaling without cloning yourself.
In 2023, I want to focus on one main client, and that client is Dirgha for me.
This year, I will build the core Dirgha team/brand/audience to be more effective and impactful as a founder, thought leader, and investor in the startup space.
This year, I am holding myself responsible for actively building a growth marketing consulting firm slash product studio/incubator to help DTC and web2 companies transition to Web3.
My mission at Dirgha is to help Web3 startups build a billion-dollar brand with omnichannel growth marketing, content, and community leadership.
I want to help you build killer apps and products that can onboard the first billion people on Web3.
Building Web3
Dirgha will solve two key problems for global talent, founders, and investors:
1. People Problems: By connecting talent/freelancers with startup founders and organizations.
2. Money Problems: By connecting founders with angel investors and VC funds
The MVP solution to these problems could take the form of a Web3 SaaS platform — powered by AI and blockchain.
Seed Funding
It takes a lot of humility to accept that you need money to move fast and break things.
You can’t build A+ team of world-class developers without funding.
Since I have no control over when or how funding will happen in a bear market, I’ve decided to focus on what I can do without external dependencies for the time being.
I am prioritizing content-powered community building and marketing right now because that’s a role I’m least likely to outsource to anybody else at this earliest stage of our journey.
My vision for Dirgha is to make it easier — even autonomous — for founders and investors to discover, connect and collaborate on a global scale for a fraction of the present cost, if not totally free.
Here’s what a vertically-integrated “work” platform/marketplace should enable:
1. Find or publish a startup idea at any stage
2. Build a team interested in an idea with smart contracts
3. Attract funding for your idea/team at any stage
4. Get access to marketing and mentorship
5. Acquire, merge, exit
Right now, we have to juggle between a lot of different apps and networks to be part of the global economy.
We can streamline how people work with AI and blockchain.
In a nutshell, that’s my pitch to early investors who want to work with me.
If you’re building a solution that makes collaboration for impact easy, I can contribute to your growth story.
Current Plan
As part of the early marketing and community-building activity for Dirgha, here’s what I’m doing so far:
Starting Solve Scale newsletter community — which you’re reading right now
Activating my dormant Twitter and Linkedin, identifying ideal target profiles
Working to launch a cohort-based incubator/accelerator program for early-stage founders within the next 15 days
Building a personal network of investors with a direct line of communication
Consulting for growth-stage founders on demand
Call to Action
You don’t have to wait for Dirgha to be live to start working with me.
Here’s how we can create magic today:
Founders/Startups: Need to streamline marketing or hire a fractional CMO to demonstrate ROI? Check out my portfolio here on Notion and book a call, if you feel we’re the right fit.
Angel Investors/VCs: Need new and carefully curated investment opportunities directly in your inbox? Send me your investment thesis and requirements so that I can add you to my personal investor list.
Zero spamming; less noise, more signal.
Let’s build Web3 together.
Love—
@salik
Image Courtesy: Lexica.art