Which format?

Jack Butcher created single visuals, daily, often accompanied by no more than ten words.

Paul Graham produced essays, often months between publishing. The longest essay was 11,800 words.

Baker and Enns release a bi-weekly podcast where they take turns interviewing each other.

Jonathan Stark writes a daily email.

Naval wrote micro posts and threads.

Lenny Rachitsky produces a weekly, heavily researched newsletter, typically 1,500 to 3,000 words.

Every single one of these people has enjoyed wild success, in part, because of how they package their thinking.

Which format should I pick?

I hear that question a lot.

There's only one answer: pick the format you enjoy as a consumer.

If you like narrative driven podcasts, make those. If you like Instagram carousels, make those.

When you pick the format you think you're supposed to (because the algorithm likes it, because your competitors do it, because someone you respect told you to), but you really don't enjoy consuming that style of content in your free time, two outcomes manifest:

1. You’ll struggle to make content that resonates because you won’t know what ‘good’ looks like. You’ll have no built-in taste or intuition for the format.
2. You’ll quit, partly because you’re not getting results (because of point 1), partly because you hate the format. You get no joy out of making it.

I could point you to people who’ve been successful with every single format, platform, and content length imaginable.

There isn’t a ‘right’ format.

Obviously, it helps to publish where your audience hang out, but within reason, different sections of your market likely hang out in different places and enjoy different formats.

Just make something good, and you can only do that when you make something you like.

Focus all your attention on solving one painful frustration. Share your thinking around it in public. Talk about little else. Do it through a format that you treat as a craft you enjoy getting better at.

Keep at it long enough, and you'll eventually get lucky. The right person at the right time will discover your work.

That’s the right format.