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We’re on the 14th hole.

The highest point on the course.

Mountains of North Georgia on one side, Tennessee on the other.

It’s the second round of four on a guys’ golf trip.

My partner, a CEO in his late 40s who’d flown in from Seattle, looks around and says:

“I’ve been wanting to do stuff like this my whole life.”

That line hit me.

Trips like this weren’t always possible for him.

He went all-in on his business. Built community. Grew his firm. Now he has the freedom to do the things he used to dream about.

Being around guys like that was inspiring.

It’s one of the reasons I got into tech sales — I knew it could give me the income and lifestyle to be around people playing at that level.

(If you’re wondering how I got invited on this trip, I’ll explain that below.)

There were 12 of us on the trip — founders, consultants, creators.

Most were running businesses between $500k and $10M+, building companies and scaling using Twitter or LinkedIn.

I was the only W2 guy. Curious about internet entrepreneurship, I spent the weekend in sponge mode.

Here are 5 takeaways for building an audience and a business using the internet:

1. We’re still so early
Back in 2021, you could post a thread and gain 10,000 followers overnight. Those days are gone. But zoom out: for every thousand people online, maybe ten are creating while the rest are lurking. Consistency and community still win. A decade from now, today will feel like the golden days. If you’re creating, you’re already ahead of 99% of the internet.

2. The path to monetization
The playbook was the same for almost everyone: start on Twitter or LinkedIn > funnel followers into a newsletter > sell through email. Social creates awareness; newsletters drive revenue. The numbers: ~10% of revenue from Twitter, ~30% from LinkedIn, the rest from newsletters. If you’re not capturing emails, you’re renting attention instead of owning it.

3. Pay to grow
Organic growth works — that’s how I built this newsletter to ~2,000 readers… But it’s slow. Most people speed up the process using ads (specifically Meta) paying ~$2 per subscriber. If a subscriber is worth $50+ lifetime, paying $2 creates a growth engine. The alternative is diversifying channels. LinkedIn seems to be the best option if you already have an established following. So the real decision is choosing between writing checks for speed, or playing the long game by stacking content across platforms.

4. It goes down in the DMs
Comments build community; DMs build relationships. I got invited on this trip because I DM’d the organizer after seeing him tweet from the Masters. Six months later, I was teeing it up in Georgia. Some people even automate DMs to turn followers into calls and collaborations. You don’t need to go that far — but send a few genuine DMs each month. That’s where the real opportunities happen.

5. Reddit is the new LinkedIn?
Almost everyone agreed LinkedIn was the most profitable social media channel today. But many see Reddit as the future. Its communities are built for niches, advertisers are piling in, and LLMs scrape it nonstop. Unlike LinkedIn, it’s light on corporate fluff (though it can get dark). Several guys on the trip are already betting big on Reddit. The question isn’t if it becomes a growth channel — it’s when.

The internet is a wild place.

You can be a guy from middle-of-nowhere Alabama who built a $3M business helping entrepreneurs grow their personal brand.

A copywriter from Jersey who sold his email list of 10,000+ to-go all in on a Dynasty Fantasy football website.

Or even an anonymous Twitter account with a Wolf of Wall Street avatar, sharing stories like this one (thanks for reading).

What a time to be alive.

P.S. I'm in the research stage of developing my first paid program about how to use Reddit to drive pipeline and revenue. Is this something you're interested in? Any specific questions you have about using Reddit as a sales channel?

Hit reply and let me know. I read and respond to every message.

Until next Thursday,

TSG