Millionaire Shares Simple Advice for Success: ‘Stop Tweeting and Do the Work’ — What This Means
Written by
Yaël Bizouati-Kennedy
Edited by
Joe Evans
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In the current over-saturated influencer era, in which likes and followers on platforms such as X (formerly Twitter), TikTok or Instagram can be the key to financial success, one millionaire chose the opposite route — and ended up doing very well.
“A lot of people start tweeting all this advice before they’ve actually done anything and have any advice to share,” 42-year-old Lenny Rachitsky told CNBC, adding that without experience and deep know-how on the subject, your advice could end up superficial at best and wrong and even harmful at worst. “Nobody needs that,” he added.
Rachitsky, who previously worked in product management and software engineering — notably for Airbnb, according to his LinkedIn profile — founded his newsletter in 2019. Lenny’s Newsletter, a weekly advice column about product, growth, and career, now has more than 591,000 subscribers and roughly 195,500 X followers.
CNBC reported his newsletter now brings in more than $500,000 per year — all from writing one post a week and working on each for 10 to 20 hours. It’s now the leading business newsletter on Substack, according to the website.
Following that success, Rachitsky created Lenny’s Podcast in 2022, releasing two episodes per week and interviewing leaders in the product management space. He puts in four to five hours per week for a podcast which now brings in more than $500,000 per year in addition to the weekly newsletter.
According to Rachitsky, one key aspect of success in any personal venture is to gain some experience in the field first. You have to “do the work for a long time first” before you can start advising about it,” he told CNBC. “At least five years of doing the job, ideally 10 years, ideally longer to build real experience and have something new to contribute,” he added. “My advice is just stop tweeting and do the work.”
Many experts agree with this premise. “I mean, it’s a little bit ironic to be taking advice from people who just got their advice from reading the web, innit?,” said Eric Croak, CFP, president at Croak Capital. “Let’s remember that sharing experiences goes beyond just telling stories; it involves immersing oneself in the real-life challenges of human existence.”
Croak also added that he knows a few millionaires who held back on giving firm advice until they had tangible results to show for it. “So, yes, I agree. Work for it more than you talk about it, and when you achieve your goals, people will naturally seek your advice,” he said.
Richard Lambert, a resume writer who has made more than $1 million as a Fiverr freelancer, also echoed the sentiment. According to him, to be successful in any venture, first, you need to avoid the “analysis paralysis trap.”
“It’s easy to be sucked in by the bottomless well of advice that comes neatly packaged via social media and YouTube videos especially,” said Lambert. “As a starting point and as a place to hang your hat to get some frame of reference, sure — these YouTubers, podcasters, etc. can be a great source of advice. But at some point, you need to stop passively watching, and start actively doing.”
Second, he said you need to “lean on the masters.”
“Just watching YouTube or TikTok videos isn’t going to cut it,” he added. “Get out there to physically shadow or work for a person who is successfully operating in your chosen field –you’ll learn more this way than you ever will from any social media video or even university course.”
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