From Working at McDonalds to 1.5M Followers in 18 Months

Sheehan Quirke is the guy behind Cultural Tutor on Twitter (most popular tweets).

He went from working at McDonald’s 🍔 with 0 followers to over 1.5 million followers in just 18 months 🚀

Chenell Basilio breaks down the story…

[Sheehan’s success is] not due to a bunch of growth hacks. His content is a masterclass in the power of focus and creating truly unique content.

Sheehan writes about culture and how things change over the years.

He tweeted in June 2022…

Six weeks ago I quit my job and set myself a challenge. 

Start a Twitter account. Share the things I care deeply about for at least 30 days. See what happens. 

And today I’ve hit 100k followers. Thank you. To all of you. Truly 🙏

Off the back of that success, Sheehan was thinking to launch a paid newsletter.

Chenell explains…

David [Perell] got on a call with Sheehan and told him it was a terrible idea to create a paid newsletter because it would slow his growth a lot.

He eventually asked him to become a “Writer in Residence” for Write of Passage instead. David would pay him a salary to keep writing every day.

Sheehan took that offer 🤝

It’s unclear how much he’s getting paid, but it’s safe to say it’s a much better gig than working at McDonalds.

Btw, we covered David Perell’s story a while back…

• $1.8 Million Teaching Writing

Back to Chenell’s profile…

[Sheehan] was trying to post insightful ideas with minimal context. And he was posting A LOT.

He was trying, but he wasn’t pulling the threads out long enough to tell a true story.

And then, on his 38th day running this account, on only the 72nd tweet he’d written, he had his first massive, mega-viral post.

Sheehan was basically throwing a lot of stuff at the wall. He had a lot of misses, but he kept going.

And eventually he broke through with that viral post 🥳

Chenell’s takeaway…

If you spend more time creating something than anyone else will, your work is going to stand out.

No one wants to sit down and do deep research to find out why Lionel Messi is wearing that specific shade of blue on his jersey, but a lot of people want to know why.

Chenell’s work is another example of diving deep.

She spends dozens of hours researching her subjects and pulling out insights.

I reckon there’s plenty of opportunity for other people to do this in different niches. 

What if you studied the top creators in your niche and shared the rare insights you dig up? 🤔

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