The Lean Writing Feedback Loop
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time to result
- ~ongoing to results
- Steps
- 6
- Confidence
- —
Lean Writing replaces extended private planning with rapid, data-driven publishing. Before each piece, the writer specifies who it is for and what that person should be able to do afterward. The idea is then published in a small format on a social platform, where reactions arrive quickly. Views indicate the direction of broad interest, while comments and questions reveal needs, engagement quality, and possible customers. The writer also considers personal interest and connection to the intended business. Strong signals are expanded and repeated; weak signals are cut or revised. Through repeated experiments, the niche emerges from evidence rather than requiring a perfect decision in advance.
Origin
Extracted from Deep Dive with Ali Abdaal
How to run it
- 1
Write For Who, So That
At the top of the draft, name the specific reader and the outcome the piece is intended to help them achieve.
Pro tip Test different readers and outcomes rather than treating the first choice as permanent.
Watch out A piece for everyone is unlikely to feel specific to anyone.
- 2
Create an atomic test
Express the idea as a tweet, thread, short essay, LinkedIn post, or another quickly publishable unit.
Pro tip Test an idea before expanding it into a book, course, or long-form project.
Watch out Long production cycles delay the feedback needed to improve the idea.
- 3
Publish where readers already gather
Use a social platform with built-in distribution rather than depending on people to discover an isolated website.
Pro tip Cole identified Twitter and LinkedIn as having strong distribution at the time of the interview.
Watch out Follower count does not guarantee that a post will be broadly distributed.
- 4
Read multiple data points
Assess views, comment quality, questions, engagement, personal interest, and connection to the business outcome.
Pro tip Treat a detailed question as a possible conversation with a future customer.
Watch out More views do not automatically mean a better business opportunity.
- 5
Double down on winners
Create more work around ideas, readers, and outcomes that generate the strongest relevant signals.
Pro tip Expand a winning small post into deeper content or a product only after validation.
Watch out You are not obligated to pursue a viral subject that you do not want to continue.
- 6
Cut or revise losers
Reduce effort on ideas that repeatedly fail to attract the intended people or advance the intended business.
Pro tip Keep a portion of output available for new experiments.
Watch out One weak result is not always enough evidence to abandon an idea permanently.
In the wild
Cole said Ryan Holiday was initially known for marketing. After a Stoicism 101 blog post for Tim Ferriss generated significant feedback, Holiday doubled down and wrote The Obstacle Is the Way.
→ A breakout data point led Holiday toward the stoicism category with which he became widely associated.
Cole said Mark Manson’s publisher asked about his largest and most viral blog post. The answer was the post that became the basis for The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck.
→ A validated article was expanded into a bestselling book rather than selecting the topic without evidence.
Common mistakes
Designing the perfect niche in advance
Excessive planning assumes the writer can predict demand without publishing any testable data points.
Optimizing only for views
High attention may produce shallow comments or attract people unrelated to the intended business.
Treating one success as a permanent identity
A winning topic is evidence, not a binding commitment to write about it forever.
From the transcript
“doubling down on the winners and cutting the losers”
“every time you sit down to write who are you creating for so that they can do what”
From the episode
5 Ways To Make $1 Million As A Writer - Nicolas Cole
Nicolas Cole